'Hijack', Cinematographer, Ed Moore

0:07Ed MooreHey, how you doing?

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

0:11Ed MooreI'm good, thank you. Wow, that's quite a setup.

0:16Jawad MirAh, it's just something big, just something I put together over COVID. How is the weather in…

0:23Ed MooreI like it

0:23Jawad Mir... London? Thank you. Thank you.

0:25Ed MooreIt's, well, it's for some reason it's, like, the rainiest July ever, so, the garden is looking amazing, but, we're kinda trapped inside. It's absolutely torrential.

0:36Jawad MirYeah. I've been, I've been following that, and I didn't realize it was still going on, so hopefully things swing and summer kicks in or the sunshine kicks in.

0:45Ed MooreHopefully. Hopefully, it's, you know, I mean, we've clearly destroyed the climate completely, just to start off on a bad, on a pessimistic foot. But yeah, hopefully it'll stop raining at least.

0:56Jawad MirFor sure. For sure. Well, thank you for joining in.

0:58Ed MooreS…

0:58Jawad MirI appreciate it. Saw Hijack a few weeks ago and, really enjoyed it. You know, the twists, the turns, the editing, the cinematography, the direction. Overall performances were great, so truly a great job on a small s… a short series for once, you know. Longer series kinda become too much sometimes because of the time and all that, but this was great to see.

1:27Ed MooreYeah, I think people have enjoyed just having, you know, people are busy, they get home from work, they just want, like, 45 minutes thriller, kinda old school. You don't have to go on Wikipedia and learn the kind of world of the film and the kind of, you know, big fantasy sci-fi backstory. Like, it seems to have really hit home.

1:47Jawad MirYeah, for sure. I think you worked on, Silo as well, right, for a little bit? For a five…

1:51Ed MooreYeah. Well, I'm, I've been doing, or I was until the SAG strike have kind of, kinda paused matters. I've been working on Silo Series 2, so that was what I jumped onto after, Hijack. So yeah, I'm doing the kind of last half of Series 2. And we were about 75% of the way through that shoot and, yeah, so now we kind of like we will finish it at some point I guess. But, we need, we need the actors and the studios to come to some sort of arrangement to finish that off.

2:24Jawad MirRight. Right. But you didn't work on the first series, you're working on the second one, just to be clear.

2:28Ed MooreCorrect. Yeah, correct.

2:29Jawad MirGot it. Got it.

2:30Ed MooreYeah, so my, yeah, my Silo's not out yet.

2:32Jawad MirWell, I won't ask you any questions for that then, because I really enjoyed Silo as well. Again, very few times I actually watch series. I mean, I can just put them on my fingertips from Star Trek: The Next Generation to Seinfeld to Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Lost…

2:50Jawad Mir... And House of Cards. That's pretty much it. So it's, it was good to see, Silo in terms of the premise and in terms of story. It was very timely too, I find, obviously with the, with the COVID stuff and all the discussion…

3:07Ed MooreFor sure

3:07Jawad Mir... About what you're able to do and not. But that being said, we'll talk about it some other time.

3:13Ed MooreIt's funny 'cause I've been like, I've, I've been saying to my agent I'm now, like, the guy that shoots things in cylinders. Like, we did horizontal cylinder for The Plane and I did vertical cylinder for Silo. So I'm like, "Next year I'd really like to go outside, like and get a job with some daylight. That'd be great." But no, they've been, they're, both shows have been great fun.

3:32Jawad MirGood. Good. Well, before we even get into Hijack, I would love to know your story about how you got into cinematography, the film world, what inspired you, what your journey has been.

3:45Ed MooreSure. Well, yeah, my father's an actor, kind of retired now, but like a jobbing actor, so I was kind of around that world. You know, theater mainly. Like, I'd spend my sort of school holidays joining him on tour and stuff and I'd a few film sets and so I k… I kinda had a toe in the water and then I started as a result of that working theater lighting. I kind of thought that was what I wanted to do, so I kind of did five or six years of, you know, starting out as a follow spot guy, like a, 15 years old and kinda climbing up in the lighting grids and stuff in my local theater. Loved that world. And then that kinda led into, working in film lighting rental. I did that for a bit. That was interesting 'cause I sort of started being interested in photography and shooting short films and stuff like that and the lighting rental place I worked for was kind of not super busy.

4:45Ed MooreLike, they would have their few big shows they would do and the rest of the time I just had this warehouse of lighting kit to play with. So I'd set up kind of trying to transfer what I'd learned into theater lighting into screen lighting. And then sort of a, that was all kind of before university. At university some friends and I kinda got together and we were doing student TV and kind of awful things. And we started a production company together which, you know, we just ended up shooting hundreds of corporate films, industrial films, like just, you know, if there's a headshot interview technique I ha… I haven't done I'd be surprised. Just so, you know, that was great fun so just, you know, years of traveling around the world doing headshots, documentary-type stuff. And, you know, eventually went freelance as a DP. I'd kind of, I'd along the way of doing the corporate stuff I'd got into, like I'd bought a Steadicam and I was kind of…

5:47Ed Moore... Doing stuff. But you had, you know, it's that real tricky thing of like you, to get, to get someone to trust you as a, as a DP you sort of have to have done it and to, you know, to have done it someone needs to trust you, so you get into this kinda endless cycle. In the end I got really lucky because… I had shot, there's a, there's a sci-fi comedy, called Red Dwarf, which I was a huge fan of when I was younger. And, I can't remember quite how, but I was put in touch with the creator of that show, Doug Naylor, and he wanted to shoot a pilot for something that was... This is where the Canon 5D had become a big deal.

6:24Jawad MirRight. Right.

6:25Ed MooreAnd I, and he kinda wa… he basically was like, "I'm looking for someone young to do it for free." And I was like, "Well, I'm someone young that wants some credit, so this is gonna work out great." So we, and I love Red Dwarf, so we'd shot this pilot. It wasn't to do with Red Dwarf, but, it went really well, and then just after that, Doug had another series of Red Dwarf commissioned, and I sort of had this, like, one tiny bit of leverage and, was able to turn that into a job as a camera operator. And I mean, at this stage, I, you know, you don't know what you don't know. I mean, I'd never been really, I'd never really worked on a proper set before. Like, someone had to explain to me, like, you know, "You're meant to say camera set," and, "You're meant to do all this stuff." But I'd kind of, was sort of self-taught at that point in film world. But had that credit, managed to, you know, get on well with those guys. Eventually I was asked to come back and DP the subsequent series of Red Dwarf and the, then sort of as a result of that, was doing lots of comedy work for a long time as a DP.

7:25Ed MooreAnd we'd be shooting kind of 10, 11 paged, pages a day, so you're really thinking on your feet in terms of lighting. And just, you know, and I mean, it's interesting to talk about now 'cause it now seems impossible that it ever came off. But eve… eventually, you know, lots of luck, managed to get into drama. And, I did, there was, there was a year when I was trying to get into the dramas where I think I had 13 interviews and 13 rejections. That was, that was, I was like, "I'm never gonna get out of comedy." but yeah, it does, you keep plugging away and, eventually you get there.

8:02Jawad MirYeah, so true. I remember the 5D when it, broke free, and I remember making an on spot decision when I went to a camera store just buying 5D for corporate and commercial work, and it just changed my business completely…

8:17Ed MooreOh, for sure

8:17Jawad Mir... Because it was a brand new technology and... But now, I mean, it's, you know, w… we can go into the discussion, Canon kind of blew the market by not really following their foot…

8:28Ed MooreYeah

8:28Jawad Mir... Their own footsteps, and now Sony's everywhere, right? Sony's pretty much dominating.

8:33Ed MooreRight. Yeah. But, oh, I mean, the 5D, I shot a feature on that. Like, it…

8:37Jawad MirYeah

8:37Ed Moore... You know, it was s… it w… the, it was so hard. There was, there was so much that was difficult. We all kind of built these, like, Frankenstein rigs, right, to make it work, but we're just, it was such a big step forward from kind of, you know, the time it was Z1s and P150s.

8:51Jawad MirYeah.

8:51Ed MooreAnd to go from that kind of m… mini DV cameras and suddenly you had something that had this gigantic frame, yeah, that was, it was such a treat.

9:01Jawad MirIt w… it was a great camera. It was a great camera, and it was a certainly an evolution, right? And I think I still remember one of the things I had to do, I mean, now we have all these USB-Cs, Thunderbolt, and, you know, the CFast card, just to offload a 32 gig back in the USB 1, USB 2 days.

9:18Ed MooreYes.

9:18Jawad MirIt would take, like, 45 minutes…

9:21Ed MooreYeah

9:21Jawad Mir... Just to offload a 32 gig card. So, but anyways. But that's good, man. I mean, y… you know, one thing that you said, again, I talk about this on podcasts with almost everyone, it's, it's that idea of rejection. Either you can just say goodbye or you can keep, you know, swinging at it, and that's the only difference between, I find, you know, people who make it somewhere versus if you don't. Because if you don't try, you won't know if you're gonna succeed or not, so you just gotta keep at it. And rejection is painful as hell.

9:50Ed MooreIt's, it's, it's horrible and like, yeah, it's, I'm not ashamed to say it's, there's been tears over the years, like…

9:57Jawad MirOf course

9:58Ed Moore... Where it's felt like it's never gonna work out. And, y… y… you know, it's, it's really tough. And, but I think it's als… i… it takes a long time. There's so much to it. First of all, the job itself of a cinematographer, I think is, like, y… you're, you're not improving unless you're doing it. And like, if it was a musical instrument, if you were trying to learn to play the piano and, like, in order to practice on the piano somebody else had to pay, like, several thousand dollars a day to rent the piano, or, you know, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, which is what it's like to have a film unit for your for your sort of…

10:33Jawad MirYeah

10:34Ed Moore... Experience to continue, y… y… it would take a while to get better. So it's, it's really tricky. And then also I think just the, in terms of getting the jobs, it certainly took me a while to realize, because you're so, you know, I think you get into this because you've, you're, you're creative and you, but you also have a s… a foot in the technical, but you have, like, a, you read scripts, you have a vision for stuff. And I, and I went, I would go into a lot of interviews kind of like really strong on the vision and the references and stuff. And w… and what I, you realize after a while, certainly in TV, in those, you know, those type of jobs when you're first getting, y… you know, they've already decided if they like the look of your stuff. What they're really looking for is, like, are you gonna complete the days? Like, it's much more practical…

11:19Jawad MirYeah

11:19Ed Moore... If, you know, you're, you're suddenly responsible for a very expensive thing. And once you've sort of proven that you can do that bit of it, that you're not gonna kind of like b… bring an expensive TV show to a crashing halt, then the rest of it becomes much easier. But yeah, I really feel for, a lot of people, you know, ask me at trade shows and conferences and stuff about, like, "How do I get that first step?" And it is just s… it's so hard. Like, it's just proving to someone that, like, they can put their trust in you. That's hard.

11:50Jawad MirAnd you gotta keep doing your own stuff, right? Because I remember my first feature documentary that I did, it was completely, you know, myself and my DP helped me a little bit, but then I didn't have the budget for him, so I finished everything on my own. And then it didn't really go far, but that gave me… a starting point and to go to my next two projects, which are these right here…

12:14Jawad Mir... And get funding. And then so on. And so it's just like an ongoing stepping stone, one after the other, and you just gotta keep at it. You can't expect to get... You might, you can't expect to get your film selected at Sundance and win Oscars and all that stuff, or even at the…

12:33Jawad Mir... TIFF, but you just gotta keep at it, and you just can't give up. You gotta love it, I think that's the most important thing.

12:38Ed MooreYou're so right, and I... You've gotta love it, and I don't know if this has been your experience, but, like, I think when you g… g… going back to my musical instrument analogy, like, if you try to play a chord on a guitar or something, you get immediate feedback whether it's wrong. Like, you just keep trying. But, like, with a, with a film project, it's sometimes not until, like, not only have you finished it, but, like, so there's been some water under the bridge before you can really objectively look back and see what was good about what I did and what was bad. 'Cause when you're in it, you're sort of submerged with detail and it's difficult to judge, like, but, like, so I don't really have any sense of whether I've, I'm happy with stuff I've done until a couple of years after. And then I'll see something on repeat and be like, "Oh, actually, that was better. I really beat myself up about over that shot," and actually that was, there's, there's a type of scene that I need to work more on. It's a long process to kind of get those, in that improvement.

13:35Jawad MirIt is, and I think the key is collaboration too, right? And I, and I find that the first one that I did, again, because there was not much of a budget, I had to do everything. And then I thought I… ... You know, I got, I had it right, which I didn't, and then the, that taught me for the next two film to hire a proper editor, because there was a budget. And then, and then you look, and then you... What the editor does for you is you think you got the film right, like, you know, you put together, like, a rough cut, and then she comes along and just, you know, right? Like, she just makes it so much better, and you're like, "Okay, this…

14:11Ed MooreSure

14:11Jawad Mir... Is even better." Now the next step is I don't even wanna do the rough cut. Like, I just don't.

14:16Ed MooreYeah.

14:16Jawad MirYou know, I just have a vision, you know, just gotta go with it, and that's it.

14:19Ed MooreYou hand it off. But because you've tried it yourself, you probably are so much better at communicating and understanding where the editor's coming from, and I think that's really important. I think the most successful filmmakers are ones who have, you know, have a real clear understanding, if not, you know, complete expertise in all those different areas. Like, I, you know, Jim Field Smith on Hijack's a great example of a, of a filmmaker who's just, like, I mean, he certainly doesn't micromanage, but he has... You can just tell he just understands exactly where people are, you know, what to expect from people, where to push them further, like, and, you know, what challenges they might be facing and, you know, that's... And I see that, you know, you see behind the scenes of Spielberg and whatever, I think it's the same thing. It's just like a mastery of all of the different components and being able to sort of synergize and get the best out of everyone.

15:15Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, so true. You know, going back to Hijack, how did you come on board, after all the journey that you've sort of laid out to, you know, working on a show on Apple TV+?

15:30Ed MooreWell, I'd been working on a Netflix show called The Last Bus, and, I, the first AD on that, a brilliant first AD called Chris May, and I, we'd met a long time ago, but I hadn't sort of seen him for ages. And over the course of that show, he was like, "Oh, I think I'm, getting, you know, a promotion to producer on this next job." And I was like, "Oh, okay. That sounds really cool." But I think, you know, you don't wanna immediately jump on people for a, for a gig.

16:00Jawad MirRight

16:00Ed Moore... But as it turned out, the project he was talking about was, Litvinenko, which was a show for Drama Fry TV about the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, and, that was, directed by Jim Field Smith. So, as a result of that, I was able to, I mean, it's all kind of kismet, but for various reasons, Jim's dance card was open for a, for a DP on that particular project. And, because of, knowing Chris over the years, I was able to get a meeting with Jim and got on super well. So we did this project for, ITV, which I'm, I'm really proud of. It's four-part drama. But…

16:42Jawad MirWhat is it, what is it called?

16:43Ed Moore... Like, right at the start of the... It's called Litvinenko, with, David Tennant plays Alexander Litvinenko. So it's, based on the true story of, Vladimir Putin poisoning, Litvinenka, Litvinenko, who was a sort of KGB spy

17:01Ed Moore... Previously. Amazing story. Very sad, very moving. But we were working on this project and, like, r… like, really early on in prep, Jim mentioned, 'cause he was just stoked about it, that this m… other project was coming down the line, that, you know, and it was with Apple and he wouldn't, you know, couldn't say too much about it. And yeah, he, we were just sort of two film nerds nerding out about something. There was never... I mean, I did, I remember saying on the first day, "Look, I, just so you know, obviously this sounds like a hijacking drama," sudden. I didn't even know it was Idris Elba at this point. I was like, "This sounds really up my street. Just, you know, don't not think I'm interested." And he was like, "Okay, but you know, just, let's be realistic. You'll probably be on, like, the B list. They'll want some huge name for this." And I was like, "Oh, that's cool." Like, just even being able to chat about how you might accomplish this is an interesting kind of exercise. But then we then we had a… another, like, you know, several weeks of prep and 10 weeks of shooting Litvinenko.

18:03Ed MooreSo I wouldn't say I wore him down, but it was certainly, it was, like tactically speaking, it was great to just, you know, we were, I was just working with Jim that whole time. So as a way of having a, an extended sort of interview for a, you know…

18:18Jawad MirRight

18:18Ed Moore... A director getting to see you, what your work as a DP and not just your lighting, but what you're like sort of day-to-day, you know, 'cause it's such a close relationship it's gotta work as a sort of interpersonal stuff. It was perfect. So I like to think I wasn't badgering him about Hijack. At the time it was called Kingdom, was the sort of code name. So but occasionally I'd be like, "Ah, I've just had an idea about how you could do a sort of camera movement in a plane set." And then y… and then it just sort of got close at the end, and then it was like it became clear that I was maybe a bit more in the running than I was, thinking. But there was, still, you know, Hijack was a big show. It was a, it was a step up for me, for sure. And, so I think Jim was super on board, but the, you know, he had to persuade, you know, Apple and co. And stuff. So, you know, I'm, I'm tremendously grateful for all the efforts he went to. But, yeah, I mean, it was… Hijack was just a, was just a brilliant match, I think, for me.

19:20Ed MooreYou know, not only it was, it was a style I really loved. I'm also a huge plane nerd, so, like, you know, this is not a cinematography conversation, but, like, I ended up, you know, building half the flight deck myself, and it was all connected to…

19:36Jawad MirOh, nice

19:36Ed Moore... My PC from home, so I could do all the flights and stuff. And, like, it was just, it was a dream of a show. We got to do all the… I got to do the air-to-air, filming. And yeah, I mean, and working with a movie star of the caliber of Idris Elba, you know, the whole thing was just fantastic.

19:56Jawad MirThat sounds incredible, and I'm so glad, that you had, you know, the fact that you were able in… involved in the setup of the, of the plane and all that. And that's one thing that I, you know, this, about cinematography that I liked, and this has nothing to do with the cinematography in David Fincher films or even the first season of Silo. That's a style, like it's, it's just, you know, very dark. Like Silo, I remember when we started watching it took me two, three episodes just to get into it visually, but…

20:25Jawad Mir... I knew, I knew when I was watching it there's obviously a reason, because you're trying, they're trying to make you uncomfortable… ... In this environment, in this tight space.

20:33Ed MooreSure.

20:33Jawad MirBut with h… and that's fine. I mean, I got obviously, you know, used to it. But with Hijack, it was just, not that it was just very normal, but it was just something that our eyes are used to over the years.

20:46Jawad MirYou know, there's sun… sunlight coming in during the windows. But at the same time, it was, it was stylistic, like it had its original, you know, palette, if you,.. And I, and I wondered, like, you know, when I was watching it, because I travel a lot, and it's not easy to go through those aisles, you know, s… let alone with a follow focus camera crew…

21:12Jawad Mir... And Steadicam and all that. How did you overcome that? Like, was… because I mean, there's obviously was the same amount of distance that normally a plane aisle would have.

21:23Ed MooreWell, it, well, thank you for saying all that, and that's exactly the vibe I was going for, a sort of heightened version of reality. But the, you know, I… one of the things I said really early on in the process to the producers and to Apple was that the, this is a precinct that we all know. Like, we've all been on a long flight, and like sometimes you have nothing else to do but stare at the, you know, the wall.

21:48Jawad MirYeah.

21:48Ed MooreSo it's like y… you're, you're trapped there. It's not like, I've done spaceships and fantasy and, you know, sci-fi and stuff when you have a lot more flexibility to go, "Ah, whatever, it's space." Like, there's a light source that is pretty but makes no sense. This, it had to make sense, and, Jim was very clear from the start that he wanted to, you know, once that door closes of that airliner in Dubai, that you are in this pressure cooker, this pressure vessel with these characters, and we're not gonna, we're not gonna cheat, we're not gonna make the sort of movie version of the set where there's just convenient space, and we're not gonna take seats out or t… take walls out. Like, we never did that. So…

22:31Ed Moore... You know, we had to create this environment that, you know, you felt like you were stuck in there with them. And because of the duration of the shoot, I mean, I'm t… I'm fairly certain that no one has ever shot as long in a plane as we did on that production. You know, we… I watched all the, all the things you would, you would think to watch and more. Most movies, or TV shows with, you know, you might have a few scenes in a plane or something, but you're, you're in and out. And you know, even movies like, you know, United 93, you know, Red Eye, et cetera, like it's, it's movie length. It's not seven hours. So, because of the just sheer duration of the shoot, like, it was never gonna be possible to, you know, do, you know, to build the entire set on sort of hydraulics and be able to move it around and fake people ar… up and stuff. Like, we did that with the flight deck to a certain extent. But, you know, it was, it, I was looking for a way that I could introduce movement into the set but have a static set, and also be able to facilitate, as much as possible, like not having lighting equipment coming into the plane.

23:36Ed MooreYou can imagine the access of getting… ... 216 extras and cast and, you know, then crew on top in and out. It was, it was difficult enough without having like, oh, there's 12 C-stands and flags everywhere. Like, so, you know, it, we did… obviously you end up bringing stuff in for, to tidy up close-ups and stuff. But mainly that set was designed, lighting-wise to be able to shoot 360, and have ways of introducing shape and sort of interest that made me happy, you know, into every shot quite quickly. And I think because I worked in theater lighting for so long, it's a bit, you know, it's now more common in film to have everything at a lighting desk, but it's, that's, that's kind of the whole world I came from. So I'd, I just try and build in as many, practicals as possible into the set and do a lot of my lighting sort of with the lighting programmer. So just kind of, you know, try to… I mean, we had 6,000 control channels of lighting in that set to be able to just…

24:35Jawad MirWow

24:35Ed Moore... Just have the kind of granularity of control. We get, okay, this is where the camera's landing It's Idris Elba, he has to look good. Like, what have we got in this vicinity that we can quickly build shape into? Because we're just... Like, if I say, "Okay, I need, like, 15 minutes to bring in flags and stuff," we're just, we're, you know. We, it was a crazy tight schedule, so we really had to shoot pretty quickly. We were averaging, I'd say, probably six pages a day and, a… and complicated pages too. Like, it would be, you have a half a page that involved the camera traveling up and down the entire set and all kinds of action. Yeah.

25:10Jawad MirSo is it fair to say that you finished an episode in eight days, eight to 10 days?

25:17Ed MooreI couldn't tell you in that metric because it was so, like, i… you know, we were in and out of other sets. We would be ... We certainly had days where we were, we were doing that kind of page count and we'd, there would be, you know, but then we would go, because it was being edited all at the same time, we would occasionally go back and sort of in, and do additional action beats and bits and pieces as the editors kind of saw. I mean, I think the editing on this show is just absolutely

25:44Jawad MirOh, it's phenomenal

25:45Ed Moore... Phenomenal with those guys.

25:46Jawad MirIt is.

25:47Ed MooreDave Webb and Rob Frost, it's just beautiful. And I think o… you know, one of the key reasons it works as a thriller and as, is pret… I loved reading the sort of reviews on Twitter and stuff of just people being on the edge of their seats, and I think that's, it's, obviously Jim essentially, but the editors kind of building that tension in is such a skill. But they, you know, they would often have a shopping list of, "Ah, it'd be great if we just..." Like, there was never, there was never too many shots for them. You know, we, th… there's whole sequences where it, the number of shots we got were, you know, they'd, there's, they often didn't go back to a shot at all, 'cause we just gave them so much and they were able to always kind of, you know, be moving to a fresh angle. It's, it's kind of a remarkable feat on that side.

26:37Jawad MirYeah, the editing, I mean, I remember t… you know, I was watching with my wife, and obviously just, like, a story unfolds, like, you know, you have all these characters, and there's moments in and out where the editing is tension… where the, where there's a lot of tension. But the last two or three, two for sure, maybe three if my memory serves me right, the amount of tension that got built up and then the twists and the turns, I mean, that, I remember I was on the edge of my seat, like, literally sitting there, and it was just so enthrilling to see things unfold and you're like, "Of course that was the reason." But you don't see that because it was all…

27:15Ed MooreYeah

27:15Jawad Mir... You know, done in such a way. I… in terms of lighting, the out… outside of the plane through the windows, did you guys have any lights… ... Set up outside just to kind of give it a bit of a feel or?

27:28Ed MooreYeah. So one of the first things I did as a flight sim nerd, like, I've been playing with flight sims since I was a kid and, like, I did the flight, from Dubai to London, like, figured out where the sun was. Like, we knew, we knew, the exact time and date that the show takes place on. And fortunately, the sun's kind of always on the left-hand side.

27:49Ed Moore... So I was like, okay, 'cause I wanna do a really what is gonna be a really expensive lighting rig. So I really wanted to, like, I've done plane, scenes before, a… and you always want some kind of harder sun through the window. But often what you'll do is, put, like, a 20K or an 18K or something on, like, a little camera crane and wiggle it around so you get different angles of light into the cabin. But the downside of having one source is obviously y… you know, the angle of the light through each window changes, and it's okay for a shot or two, but, like, w… I knew we would be traveling up and down the plane seeing the f… the full, you know, we'd built the full length of an Ai… an Airbus A330 and the dimensions are pretty much all accurate. We extended a couple of the galleys a little bit, but, certainly, you know, the length, the seats are all there. So the w… the way I'd, I was like, okay, I want, I need to have a single s… fixture, a single light source for each window that, so that they're all parallel. And I wanna be able to move that light source vertically so that, you know, it'll give the sense of the plane turning so you get that, you know, when you're in a plane and, you know, theoretically the way the plane sort of turns, that you can't, you shouldn't really be able to feel yourself turning in your seat, but what gives away the sense you're turning often is that you can just subliminally feel the light, the angle of the light changing.

29:09Jawad MirYeah. Right.

29:09Ed MooreSo I really wanted to get that in there. So I found a f… a fixture, Robe BMW-FL, which is a fixture I'm used to from the sort of live events theater world. It's a moving head, spotlight, and they were the brightest light I could find that rigged side to side matched the distance between the windows on the cabin set so that I could have these parallel beams. And they have, you know, beam shaping shutters so that, each one could be zoomed right in to be the smallest possible spot on each window, and then shutters so there was no spill from each light into the next window. So as you, as you look down the length of the plane, you had all these beams and it felt like you were looking at one light source, i.e. The sun, you know, infinitely far away. And then to move all of that vertically, there's a truss motor system called Kinesis. It's sort of like motion control for rigging. So we had all of these fixtures, I think there were about 70 or 80 on a 70 or 80 meter long truss.

30:10Ed MooreSo I think it en… ended up weighing about two and a half, three tons, and we had this on however many motors required. But this motor, this computerized motor system had, like, millimeter level control, so we could, we could program moves where, you know, this truss would move up and down to simulate the plane turning. And then the other piece of the puzzle was obviously you move the truss and all the lights are suddenly pointing at the floor or above the plane. So brilliant, lighting programmer, Ziggy Jacobs, came up with a way of, getting the Kinesis system to talk to the lighting desk to sort of… To counteract the movement of the truss with the tilt of all the fixtures, which was, no small feat, but she figured that out in prep and, that was great. So as the truss came right down, the lights would all sort of, it would tilt up into the plane and, obviously we did some big turning moves like that. We also... But even just generally in the whole sh… the whole show, that light is, that truss is always moving, and I don't know whether, like, you know, anyone is gonna be... I can see it moving, but I promise you, like, it's giving a sense of movement to the, to the sets throughout.

31:13Ed MooreYou see a bit more in episode seven. And just for the cast on the plane, like when we first loaded all the extras and stuff and we were doing this move, and you can see the, those kind of window shapes, you know, cutouts of light on the opposite wall, and you can see it sort of traveling down and finding its way across people's feet and stuff, it, they were all like, "Is this moving? What's, how are you doing this?" Like, it does give you that sense, and I think that's just, that's back to the thing that we've all been on planes, we're used to what that cue is.

31:43Jawad MirYeah.

31:43Ed MooreAnd then just in practical terms, like being able to position that truss quickly so, you know, whenever we do the shots of Idris, obviously, like every DP, you wanna give your big movie star a big cool movie star backlight. So, you know, I was able to just drop th… that truss in, so you're just kind of pinging flares into the hero shots of him. And it's very quick to do. You're not kind of winding stuff up and down or having to bring down chain hoists and stuff. It was, you know, I could do it almost as the, as the cameras were turning on, the board's going onto the shot. We all had this amazing Bolero communication system, so it was on with everyone. And I could just say to the Kinesis program, like, "Just drop that truss an extra, like," you know, you could, you could eyeball it out the window. And like, "Just drop that like 400 mil," and it was zheek, and then the light would perfectly come up and just as like, you know…

32:33Jawad MirYes

32:33Ed Moore... The AD would call action, you'd have that ping in and, yeah, it was very pleasing.

32:40Jawad MirNo, and you know, I think, in terms of that, what you just described, the movement of the light, even if it was off, which it wasn't to me, even from a, from the way it, in reality it looks, the great thing was that when you are engrossed into the story and to the, characters, those things kind of, you notice them, but in a kind of s… you know, subconsciously way. And you don't…

33:08Ed MooreYeah

33:08Jawad Mir... Register if this is something. And I've, and I've had that happen to me in a lot of movies and TV shows where if I start being nitty-gritty about things, like, oh, that editing shot was bad, or that visual was bad, then that means the storytelling is somewhere not there.

33:24Ed MooreYeah.

33:24Jawad MirRight? And I, and that's a testament to the creators, of course, and the direction and the editing and performances as a collaboration, including your work.

33:34Ed MooreWe talked a lot on the show about like, you know, is this bumping? Like it, what's, what's, what would take you out of it? 'cause we want to, like obviously, I want it to look beautiful, but like, it can't... Like, if it looks like Euphoria, I've done something wrong, right? Like, it might, it might be, it can't look like art house. It has to be, y… the, this tension sort of floods out if the artifice is too much. So, whilst I really was aiming for like, you know, heightened, like I don't ever want a shot that feels like, oh, it's a movie. Like, it's l… like it just has to look good. The cars have to look good. But they have to feel like they're on a plane or it doesn't work.

34:13Jawad MirYeah

34:13Ed Moore... So the fact that people are kind of a, are so locked in now with seeing it go out week by week, like there's no question, I don't think, that people aren't believing the world.

34:27Jawad MirYeah. One of the things I mentioned in my review was that people should watch this on the plane. And I, and I was, my brother-in-law, he was, we were talking and he's like, he, "Did you finish it?" I said, "Yeah." He's like, I'm like, "You should watch it." And then I'm like, "If you're, because you're traveling in August, watch it on the plane." And he's like, "Yeah, I will." And I'm gonna do the same thing with my kids. We're going on vacation in…... In the beginning of September, and we're gonna have them watch it on the plane because it's just, not that it's not the same effect when you are not watching on the plane, but just the…

35:02Ed MooreYeah

35:02Jawad Mir... Idea that you're on the plane. And imagine in the old days when the screens used to come down and everybody has to watch the movie.

35:08Ed MooreOh, yeah, for everyone watching it. Yeah.

35:10Jawad MirYeah. Imagine everyone…

35:11Ed MooreIt's a bit like when they do the, I love the, there, someone did a screening of Jaws, and they did it like on an open air screen, and everyone was floating in the water on like little, lilos…

35:21Jawad MirOh my God

35:21Ed Moore... Or something with their feet dangling at night. Like, yeah, that's an intense experience. So yeah, watching…

35:27Jawad MirThat's, that's very…

35:27Ed Moore... Hijack on the plane. I don't know if it's gonna be any of the first choice for the airlines for in-flight. I think you're gonna have to take it along…

35:34Jawad MirNo

35:34Ed Moore... On your own devices.

35:36Jawad MirYeah. They would never, they would never do that.

35:37Ed MooreBut yeah, I mean, and again, it was fun for me just as a, as a plane... I mean, obvious there is some things, like in reality, you can't hijack a plane like this. But so, you know, you have to, you have to kind of hand wave a little bit. You have to allow the drama to take place 'cause that's, that's what you're here for. But like, it was fun trying to, we have, obviously, pilot consultants and air traffic control consultants. It was fun trying to make all that world, as realistic as possible. And I think, again, with the flight deck stuff, like, you know, n… the vast majority audience aren't going like, "Oh, that's the correct button he's pressing," or whatever. But I do think that, y… they, n… you know, everyone is sort of familiar with the taste of authenticity, whether or not they know the specifics. So I think if you know, some of the sets we looked at that people use for flight deck stuff are kind of like, you know, a mishmash of video game controllers, and like, you know, back projected static graphics and stuff like that. And I think just the, you know, that is the type of stuff that if you're doing a seven-hour show set on a plane, you just can't get away with.

36:42Ed MooreIt has to, as soon as you, a lot of scenes in that flight deck, and as soon as it didn't feel like it was as real as the rest of the set, it, y… the tension kind of goes. And yeah, and we also ended up using a lot of… you know, volume, like big LED screen stuff around those flight decks. We did have the flight deck on, a motion gimbal as well so we could throw the cast around a little bit. And all…

37:05Ed Moore... All that's great for performance as well and lighting as well because you're, you're, you're suddenly... You know, we never had green screen or blue screen out of any of those windows. It was always in vision, LED screens.

37:18Jawad MirYeah. Wonderful. One of the things that I... And this is not your realm, but I just wanted to get an idea if there was something else shot. One thing I loved about the series, was the backstory of the antagonists, right? Especially the two, the two guys that I'm not gonna say what for people who haven't seen it, but you know what I'm talking about.

37:38Ed MooreSure.

37:38Jawad MirThe…

37:39Ed MooreYeah

37:39Jawad Mir... And a bunch of other stuff, even Idris' story and,.. But there was this one little nugget that bothered me, and I don't know if you guys shot extra stuff and it got cut out, was the character of Idris Elba's son. I…

38:00Jawad Mir... I just felt, I just felt... And I understand it's a seven-part series. You have a duration. I'm just wondering out of, just as a curious filmmaker, was there additional stuff that was shot with him that was cut out or written that had a little bit more backstory of his?

38:17Ed MooreI think, I think definitely, but I think that's the case throughout. I mean, I think we shot, we shot a huge amount of material… ... That was, you know, i… you know, in the crucible of the edit, you know, they are, they do what they must do. And, you know, the edit is almost like you're, you're making the show again. I mean, I never get to go to the edit, but, like, I understand, you know, what... The way it's been described to me is like ignore everything about the project that you started out trying to make. You d… You know, forget the scripts. Look at the material you've got. What can you make with all these building blocks? And

38:52Jawad MirYeah

38:52Ed Moore... So I think in… inevitably, a… along the way, you know, they end up making decisions like, you know, what's, where are we keeping ourselves on the boil? Like, what do we need to sort of move the story along? So, yeah, I mean, specifically there I think, I think, you know, there was, there was a few more bits and pieces, and I think it's been r… you know, reduced down a bit. You know, I think inevitably a, you know, show set on a hijacked plane, you prob… you want to spend a lot of time on the hijacked plane, so.

39:22Jawad MirYeah. And I understood that. That's what I said.

39:23Ed MooreBut you also, you know, you wanna keep, you want there to be stakes as well for your, for your lead character and it not just be like, "Yeah, okay. You know, he lives or dies. He doesn't... You know, he's a hero." I think it's... I, you know, I do think Sam is a really interesting character es… you know, especially for Idris 'cause he's not just, you know, he, you know, he looks like he could just sort of pick up any of the terrorists and crush them, but, like, that's not what the character's like. He's, he's sort of quite mild-mannered in s… in some aspects. He's not looking for a fight. Like, he's looking for a way to sort of diffuse it all. And I think it's a real testament to Neil Maskell and the other, cast playing the, crime group that…

40:05Ed Moore... That the, you've, you've, you really believe the threat to Idris and the others throughout, when, you know, occasionally there would be times where, like, Idris would, like, wouldn't physically fit down the aisle 'cause he's such a unit. Like, you know?

40:18Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

40:18Ed MooreSo, like f… you know, finding ways to make, to put him at a disadvantage, that was something that came out. But I think he's, you know, he's gives a remarkable performance and it's really makes it work.

40:31Jawad MirHe does. And, you know, going back to the cuts, and I think it was important that you guys did that because if there was too much of a backstory, then it would have just dragged, and that's one of the things that this series demanded from the get-go, and also, you know, from a thrilling standpoint, it was just a pure form of entertainment. And that was just, like I said, me being the creative storyteller that I am, but I also understood that…

40:55Ed MooreSure

40:55Jawad Mir... You know, what the n… the necessities. And one thing I really like what you mentioned, I again ta… I talk about this on the podcast, and I have made it my mission on the stuff that I do, to make a protagonist strong you need to have a stronger antagonist.

41:12Jawad MirAnd that's what makes Idris Elba's character Sam so good because of his, you know, counterpart, Neil. And I dig that. I mean, look at The Godfather, right? Like, I really love that when time is spent on the antagonist just to explain who they are. It just, it doesn't mean that you have to side with them, but it just makes the protagonist much more stronger, and I love that about this series.

41:42Ed MooreI think that it's, you know, it's interesting looking at the... I mean, I love the big high-concept shows where you can just dive into a world and it's immersive. And I mean, Silo is a great example of that, where there's just so much to learn. It's this big mystery box and, a… a… and there's... You know, that was a treat. But I think, you know, h… there's a lot of stuff about Hijack that is successful I think just 'cause of, like, you know, real basic film s… storytelling stuff. Like…

42:08Jawad MirYeah

42:08Ed Moore... Somebody wants something and they can't have it. Like, you know, there's an obstacle in the way and, like, every shot is kind of about that. Like, it's, it's, you know, who's trying to get where? Why can't they have what they want? And there's, you know, the, just... The… Jim and the editors and the, you know, George Kay, the writing team have just found every conceivable way of, like, wringing out all of that tension, all of the, you know, who knows what, like, you know, the sort of the withholding of knowledge from the audience, but also from the character. Sometimes we know something the characters don't and vice versa. It's real. You know, and just the power of the cut, it's like Eisenstein and the, you know, the pram on the, steps. Like, it's, you can, you can... There's, there's te… there's moments of great tension that make me laugh i… that just are created by a cut, like, or, you know, with people looking at each other. Jim and the, and the editors are fantastic at finding the perfect look and, of a, to te… tell a whole story by someone's eyes moving from one place to another.

43:12Ed MooreAnd I know 'cause I was there, that a lot of the eye lines they've cut together make absolutely no physical sense whatsoever. Like, they can't see that person, that's insane, that's just, but it makes perfect sense in the screen world, which is the only world that matters. Like, it's, you know, they know what they're doing. And I think the composer as well, whose name I've forgotten, but she's done an amazing job of just, like, telling you how to feel, like, at any given moment, and to keep that going. So, 'cause, again, we get the assembly edits as we went through, and every... Particularly, I really love the sequence at the end of episode three, which has a whole sequence of, Idris's character moving throughout the plane.

43:53Ed MooreThings are finally sort of kicking off into more of an action world, and then at the end a gunshot goes off and we cut to, an aerial shot I'm very proud of that we just cling onto for ages. But that whole sequence, because of the way we shot it, we didn't always have the whole aircraft full of all of the SAs. We'd have sections, so we'd do, like, we'd have some days of all the first class people and all the business class people and all the economy…

44:16Jawad MirYeah

44:16Ed Moore... People. And, you know, because it's expensive to have everyone. So if you, if you watch it, you'll notice there's lots of careful times where the hijackers are closing a curtain or something, which they're, they're, by closing the curtain they're saving us bringing in, like, 80 people the next day. But to, you know, with that sequence we went back to and back to. And as we were getting these assembly edits, you're seeing, the, you know, it was good the first assembly we got, and then you added all of the w… what's business class thinking about this, and that was amazing. And then you added all of the premium economy and economy, and then you added the aerial shot, and then you added the music, and, like, so, like, every week we'd, we'd see a new assembly edit and just, I was just watching that 10-minute section just, like, over and over again, and every time it just became more and more enjoyable. Like, it's so more than the sum of its parts.

45:05Jawad MirI'm glad you mentioned the music. I'm trying to get to speak to Anne Nikitin, who's the composer. Sh… I mean, that really…

45:13Ed MooreShe's genius

45:14Jawad Mir... Not, again, nothing to take away from writing, editing and cinematography. The music, especially in the last few episodes, oh, I think that, like, really immense job in building the tension. It really did. It was just phenomenal. And it was one of those musics that is not like Star Wars or Crimson Tide…

45:32Ed MooreYeah

45:32Jawad Mir... Or Lion King, where it doesn't, s… like, you don't think about it, like, "Oh, that's a great score," but it just, you know, synergizes itself with the visual so well that you're in it.

45:44Ed MooreWell, I think she accomplished something that I was trying to accomplish, which is that you, with what you're doing creatively, it's in service of the script and the story. You know, you're trying to do cinematography or score that feels the way y… you want the audience to feel and you're not sort of doing your own thing. You know, and I think when we, I, you know, I was sort of imagining, like, the score from, like, Sicario. You know, you set these very high bars for, like…

46:13Jawad MirYeah

46:13Ed Moore... Thriller music, and I think she passed all of them. I mean, it's like it's, if you watch that stuff with the, with no audio, 'cause when I was grading the show there was no soundtrack ins… before the final sound mix. And I keep trying to go to a final sound mix because everyone tells me that's the most exciting bit, 'cause you finally really feel like your show's come together when you get the, get the subwoofer going. But yeah, watch it with no music or temp score and so such a treat for me to see the final. I think the sound design as well, like, not just the music, but the level of detail. The editors were already amazing in the offline for sound design. Those were not, like, assembly edits, they were, they were very layered and rich…

46:52Jawad MirRight

46:52Ed Moore... In terms of sound. But the, final post sound team I just think, again, geniuses. Like, they built so much. They went out and recorded every conceivable sound effect and, yeah, it's, it's beautiful to hear.

47:08Jawad MirNo, sure. One thing you mentioned about the eye lines, you know, i… it's not possible sitting in the plane looking at a specific person in a certain seat. I noticed that in the first class scene where there's that Arabic young girl sh… who's sitting across from that…

47:25Jawad Mir... And then she's looking at the older…

47:26Ed MooreLisa, yeah

47:27Jawad Mir... O… older couple. I mean, yeah, she would…

47:29Ed MooreYeah

47:29Jawad Mir... She would see the woman, but there's no way in heck that she's gonna see her husband…

47:33Ed MooreYeah

47:34Jawad Mir... On the other side. But yeah, like you said, like…

47:37Ed MooreNo, for sure

47:37Jawad Mir... You said it's just for the visuals of the audience, like, people forget about…

47:41Ed MooreYeah

47:41Jawad Mir... Those things.

47:43Ed MooreWell, we definitely, yeah, you definitely need your eye line wits about you shooting that show because, you know, we were pretty much, we were, we were pretty good for, like, sticking on, like, the right side of the eye line and, y… you know, where possible. But with two cameras in some of those spaces and characters just looking all across the place and scenes developing, like, it was, that was a bit of a headache. There were more than a few little diagrams…

48:06Jawad MirYeah

48:06Ed Moore... Drawn. But, and you just have to fake it. I mean, that particular first class, set was, I think that was an old British Airways first class or maybe even business class, and the, like, that was not my favorite space in the plane with those big wing backs, sort of skin tone wing backs right around your characters would not be what, I ideally would want. But that was, you know, that was what was available and, you know, we added the fiber optics and stuff so there's more interest in the background. But yeah, getting people sort of leaning in and out and faking some of that stuff, there was... Y… you eventually find every possible place you can put a camera and we were helped out a lot. I, we had the beautiful Alexa Mini LFs.

48:50Ed MooreBut for some stuff we used a lot of the DJI Ronin 4D, which had come out just before. We had one of those, and that was just a remarkable tool for fitting in sp… not only just fitting in tiny spaces and giving a sort of proper hand wheels beautiful full frame look, that you could operate with hand wheels and felt in keeping with the rest of the show. But also we, whilst we did have Steadicam, kind of, fantastic operator Jono Tyler, just a huge…... Hugely important collaborator for me on this show. He would bundle up and down the aisle with the Steadicam, but we ended up doing loads of that actually with the 4D, and he would be holding this, we call it the chicken cam 'cause it looks like its head stays in the same place…

49:30Jawad MirYeah

49:30Ed Moore... As you move the body around. And, I'd be on the hand wheels outside the set, so he'd be able to sort of just slide the camera into the perfect place, and, that was, a really valuable tool.

49:44Jawad MirNice. What was it different about shooting exteriors? When I say exteriors, I mean out of the plane, like whether it's on the street or in the intelligence office meeting rooms, or at the traffic control set. How was that from your standpoint, not just as a creative person, but just going into that different environment than being out of this tighter space? What was that transition like? Or were you guys going back and forth, or did you shoot everything on the plane first and that, or vice versa, or?

50:15Ed MooreWell, it was, it was mixed. So we had a, there was a beautiful set at the stage next door that was so that the air traffic control, the UK air traffic control set, and the Collingswood House, which is sort of where all the government characters are, was kind of a composite set. It all backed onto itself and shared sort of, walls.

50:34Ed MooreAnd, w… all of it looked out onto a… another giant LED screen, that, so the view out into London was all, st… you know, just up on the screen. And we'd, we'd sent out second unit to shoot sort of different plates for different times of day. That was really, a… and, Andrew Purcell, the designer, did a great job of designing that set to sort of be, do all the things that would be a nightmare if it was green screen out there. So he built the whole set out of glass and reflective stuff. So you've, you've got the real London skyline bouncing around in the set, and you've, and that gives you the just opportunity to find more interesting frames and, like, see a reflection of a reflection. And not so great for the boom operator. He had a horrible time in that. Poor guy tried to hide the microphone. But yeah, so, you know, that was, a, just a different space to play around in. And, you know, try to, and then, and then we did get to go on location, which always felt like a big treat to be allowed out of the sta… the plane stage for a bit.

51:34Ed MooreWe had sort of two sections over the schedule of heading out and, yeah, you're just trying to keep it, y… I mean, the plane stuff just inherently is its own style and world. So that, you know, to, in terms of matching the other stuff, you have to try and introduce lots of sky and, you know, just connect the two worlds together as much as possible with the other stuff. But, they're, they're all sort of quite self-contained little precincts of their own. And, you know, we, i… towards the end of the schedule, we almost, I think at one point we had, like, four units shooting at once that Jim and I were trying…

52:14Jawad MirWow

52:14Ed Moore... To sort of simultaneously direct and shoot. We had, you know, remote, we had, units on location doing stuff, u… and units shooting in all four stages on site at, the Apple Studios. So there was, there was a lot of moving parts. And, Andrew Daniel, the colorist at Goldcrest, again, incredibly important collaborator to the look of the show. Just, you know, he gave everything that sort of thriller vibe. I'd like to think I got it most of the way there in camera, but I, it turns out that he just took it so much further. And that was really…

52:47Jawad MirRight. Right

52:48Ed Moore... Exciting to see his take on it all. Just really beautiful work.

52:53Jawad MirYeah, no, I…

52:53Ed MooreBut I'm gonna have to go at 1:00 if that's okay.

52:56Jawad MirYeah. That's fine

52:57Ed Moore... But, it was…

52:57Jawad MirI was just gonna wrap up anyways. I was just…

53:00Ed MooreSure

53:00Jawad Mir... Gonna ask you, besides Silo, is there anything else, up the horizon?

53:06Ed MooreWell, we'll see. I, Silo will be the next thing out for me, I think. So I was, lucky enough to go straight onto that. That's just a whole other beautiful world to play in. That's been a real pleasure. So I think people will enjoy s… season two. That's the most I can say about that. There's loads of fun to come.

53:28Jawad MirYeah.

53:29Ed MooreA very different style of show for me. Like, as you, as you said earlier, it's much moodier, sort of soft top light stuff. So, you know, whereas Hijack was entirely me and I was designing that look from the start, Silo has been a, it's a different challenge because you're trying to fit in, fit into a world that already exists and, you know, play in their playground. Yeah, then we'll see. So we need, we need the strikes to all resolve and get Silo finished, and, that'll be the next thing out.

54:01Jawad MirGreat. Sounds good. I'm really looking forward to Silo and maybe, se… ser… s… season two, and maybe we can do a chat when it comes out and, go through it. And thank you so much for…

54:10Ed MooreFor sure. I'd love that

54:11Jawad Mir... Joining, man. Appreciate it.

54:13Ed MooreIt's been a real pleasure. I'm such a fan of the podcast.

54:16Jawad MirOh, thank you so much, man. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Take care.

54:21Ed MooreGreat. All right. Speak soon. Bye, man.

54:23Jawad MirYep, for sure. Bye-bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.