Explore every episode of the podcast The Filmumentaries Podcast

John Maclean is the writer and director of Slow West and Tornado. Two films that I saw on release and enjoyed both. I've seen John talk on stage a few times about his films. I also ended up having a chat with him at the BFI before an event and then again afterwards in the green room. So when the opportunity to interview him came along, it said "yes!". John was born just four years before me so we share a love for a lot of the movie we grew up watching.John grew up in a small Scottish village with two artists for parents, in a working-class factory town where his family were the odd ones out. He wasn’t academic. He scraped through every exam that wasn’t art, and by sixth year he and the one other like-minded kid in the school had quietly dropped everything else and were just building portfolios.His film education came from the local video shop, which stocked Terminator, Robocop, Predator and Die Hard, and from working Edinburgh cinemas while he was at art school. The turning point was Tarantino coming to the Cameo with Reservoir Dogs and standing there talking about B movies and John Carpenter. His line is that these were the films he’d been ashamed to love. After that it was Scorsese, then whoever Scorsese liked, then whoever Kurosawa liked, and on it went.Then came the band (The Beta Band), more or less by accident. A sampler, a four track and a record collection in a Shepherd’s Bush flat turned into a demo and then a deal. He walked into the first record company meeting and said he wanted to do the sleeves and the videos. Rather than one video for forty grand, he’d make ten for four grand each. The band wouldn’t act and wouldn’t take direction, so he had to storyboard everything, and that discipline never left him.We get into storyboards as the final stage of writing rather than the first stage of shooting. Shooting a short on a phone with Michael Fassbender because he knew nobody and didn’t want a crew. Getting rejected by every festival going before London took it. Slow West nearly coming apart in the edit before it won Sundance. Populating the American West with Germans, Scandinavians, Irish and Scots. Casting faces rather than bodies. Two perf 35mm on Tornado, twenty-five days, forty to fifty setups a day. And why he thinks television has ruined our tolerance for not knowing everything about a character.Timestamps00:00 Two artists for parents, in a factory town
02:18 Not academic, and the one creative kid in the school
05:01 Dropping every subject except art
06:35 The video shop: Terminator, Robocop, Predator, Die Hard
07:57 Art school, the Film House and the Cameo
08:58 Tarantino at the Cameo, and the films he was ashamed to love
09:27 Scorsese to Kurosawa to Mizoguchi
12:04 Moviedrome, Assault on Precinct 13, and the BFI with Alex Cox
13:03 Watching films again as a director, then as a writer
14:41 Why Hollywood films didn’t seem makeable
15:35 An MA in painting, the Gate Cinema, and a sampler
16:31 Walking into the record company asking to make the videos
17:03 Ten videos for four grand each
17:32 Realising he preferred the videos to the music
19:12 Storyboarding because the band wouldn’t act
20:48 Storyboards as the last stage of the script
21:46 Pitch Black Heist, Slow West and shooting the boards
23:10 Tornado: redrawing the boards as the budget shrank
24:49 A direct line from concept to screen
25:28 Robbie Ryan, and the rules: deep focus, don’t move the camera
26:17 How little gets said on set
27:29 Studying the short form, and not rushing to a feature
29:02 Knowing nobody, and a coffee with Fassbender’s agent
30:56 Man on a Motorcycle, shot on a phone
31:26 Rejected everywhere, then London
32:30 Film4, Pitch Black Heist, and Fassbender’s offer
33:30 Slow West: New Zealand, and years of prep
34:50 A decent budget, and a much tougher time on Tornado
35:52 The edit going wrong, and nearly losing the film
39:03 John Gregory, rhythm, and being thrown out of the room
41:01 Why a Western, and why nobody was making them
42:33 The real West: Germans, Scandinavians, Irish and Scots
43:19 Reading Hawthorne, Twain and Bierce instead of the mythology
43:57 Avoiding pastiche, and knowing a genre to subvert it
46:59 Casting: no gym bodies, and Leone’s faces
48:17 The actor who played Weasel with a blank stare
49:37 Tornado: no juicy role for an A-lister
50:34 Refusing to inflate the Tim Roth part
51:39 Casting Kōki off a single Zoom
54:12 Takehiro Hira, and research as the reason he said yes
55:35 Stripping out backstory and exposition
56:41 Thin characters, Boba Fett and The Penguin
58:05 James Bond, and knowing too much
58:44 Slow West on digital, Tornado on two perf 35mm
60:25 Shooting as if it’s film, even when it isn’t
61:18 Film as value for money in the edit
64:41 Jed Kurzel, and giving a composer rules
66:10 Editing without music, and a test screening that went wrong
67:30 Writing the next one, and not chasing quantity
69:06 Second features in Britain
70:21 Every film takes someone years

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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John Knoll is Chief Creative Officer at ILM and visual effects supervisor on The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first time Mando and Grogu have been on a cinema screen. He describes two forces pulling against each other. It had to feel like it came from the same group of people who made the series, which meant keeping the handcrafted approach — puppets, creatures in rubber masks, motion control miniatures, stop motion.

But roughly forty-five per cent of the film is IMAX, and you compose and cut differently for a hundred-foot screen. Fewer quick cuts, more headroom, room around the frame for peripheral vision. IMAX had sent ILM a document about all this years ago. John decided simulating the room beat following the notes, so they built an Apple Vision Pro app that puts you in an IMAX auditorium, seats and all, looking at the live feed off the video taps.

They used it on set to check composition, and later to check animation and action scenes before they were finished. The stop motion went to Tippett, who spent the better part of a year animating a two-minute fight between Mando and two droids. The Razor Crest is a forty-eight inch miniature, double the size of the one built for the series, and John finally got to shoot it in an LED volume — built in part from panels salvaged off a decommissioned StageCraft stage.

He’d been chasing that since season one, when he tried building a foam core enclosure and projecting onto it. It sort of worked, right up until Favreau wanted the flight path changed. We also cover Rotta the Hutt, who turned out to be the hardest thing in the film. A Hutt who moves fast reads as funny on the page and is difficult to put on screen. Does he move like a snake, an inchworm, a snail? They landed on elephant seals, and then on a barrel roll.

Plus the cameras — a Sony ILX-LR1 for daylight exteriors at the Ranch, and a Canon 5D Mark IV out of ILM’s equipment cupboard for the interiors. Gaussian splats for the Razor Crest interior, shot in twenty minutes and used from any angle he wanted. Keeping a coherent look across five vendors with Doug Chiang riding the designs through post. And two shots containing an original 1976 Y-wing, on loan from the Lucas Museum for a single day, with two museum staff watching the whole time.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

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Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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This one's a bit different. It's shorter, and it's about a film that doesn't exist yet. Christopher Jacobsen is an actor and filmmaker, and full disclosure, the brother of one of my good friends. He's trying to get a documentary made about Daragh O'Malley, who played Sergeant Patrick Harper in Sharpe.

Daragh and Sean Bean were the only two actors in every episode, from 1993 to 2008. Chris grew up a huge Sharpe fan. In 2021 he and his filmmaking partner Marco sent Daragh a short film script. Daragh said yes, and a friendship followed, along with a lot of two-hour phone calls.

The spine of the documentary is Daragh's friendship with Marlon Brando. In 1995 the two were cast in Divine Rapture, alongside Johnny Depp, Debra Winger and John Hurt. Two weeks into the shoot the money fell apart and production shut down for good. Daragh and Brando stayed friends. Daragh took him for his first pint of Guinness in a rural Irish pub, kept his voicemails, and still has thirty or forty minutes of largely unseen Divine Rapture footage. There's plenty more.

Six months in a cabin with Hugh Grant and Bill Nighy on Grant's first job. Swapping Brando stories with Ron Perlman, who'd survived The Island of Dr. Moreau. Pete Postlethwaite brushing his teeth with lager on the Sharpe shoot. A family connection to Richard Harris. And the angry Irishman in the pub in Withnail and I. Chris is raising £7,000 for the first shoot.

That's a week in Ireland with Daragh, visiting places tied to Divine Rapture and his early life, and a week in London interviewing the people who knew him. The kit is already covered. The money pays for flights, fuel, a car and an extra crew member.

I've been on the other side of this. The Joe Alves documentary got to Martha's Vineyard and LA because people listening to this podcast chipped in. If you can spare the price of a coffee or a pint, send it Chris's way. Support the documentary Daragh and Brando on

GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/how-to-make-the-documentary-daragh-and-brando If you've got a question you'd like Chris to put to Daragh, about Sharpe, Brando, Withnail or anything else, get in touch and I'll pass it on.

Timestamps

00:34 How Chris and I know each other, and what the project is
01:00 A short film script, and how Daragh O'Malley came on board
01:58 Daragh's friendship with Marlon Brando
02:29 Divine Rapture: the cast, the collapse, the two weeks of footage
04:10 The Guinness, the voicemails and the unseen footage
05:02 Neil Sedaka, Shoreham Towers and a parrot called Vincent
06:17 Getting the stories on tape
07:15 How relationships form in this industry
08:15 Sharpe: fifteen years, and every episode
08:43 Jason Salkey, Brian Cox, Daniel Craig, and Pete Postlethwaite's lager
10:04 Richard Harris
11:05 Six months in a cabin with Hugh Grant and Bill Nighy
11:32 Ron Perlman, The Magnificent Seven, and swapping Brando stories
12:48 Theatre, sets and the bonds that last
13:37 The wish list: Barry Navidi, Debra Winger, Johnny Depp, Brian Cox
14:25 The Sharpe fan community and an archive producer from Facebook
17:26 The GoFundMe: £7,000, a week in Ireland, a week in London
19:48 Why these projects need backing
21:07 Withnail and I, and sending in your questions

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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Sean England has been at Skywalker Sound since 1993. He didn't arrive as a foley artist. He came in on the technical side, in the machine room and the transfer department, back when everything went to analog tape and film was spliced on a Kem. He calls those years his film school. He watched sound get made from one end of a picture to the other, then became a foley recordist, then a mixer, then went through the glass and became the artist.

The show where he cut his teeth was The Clone Wars. There was one foley stage at the Ranch in those days, so he and Ronni Brown took the night shift and cranked the episodes out, learning to work fast and picking up the Star Wars tricks handed down from Dennie Thorpe and Jana Vance.He's very good on what the job actually is. An egg crack might be an ice cream cone. The sizzle in the pan might be a candle held under tinfoil. He's got a recording of a cattle gate on his phone that he still hasn't cracked, and then somebody gave him a metal contraption built for hanging blueprints and it turned out to be exactly the sound.

He picks up leather purses in thrift shops and holds them to his ear to check for creak. He puts shoes on and looks for a hard surface to walk on.He's a drummer too, and he came up in the eighties being told drum machines would replace him, so he has a settled view on whether sound libraries and new tech are coming for his job.We cover the anatomy of a foley stage, why the mixer isn't watching his hands, the weight difference between Marvel and Star Wars and Pixar, Lincoln split between a day crew and a night crew who had to match each other, grasshopper footsteps for documentaries, mic placement as performance, and the off-mic tricks he doesn't always mention to the mixer.

Thanks so much for your continued support!

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

Ep 154 — Wolf Kahler — Colonel Dietrich in Raiders of the Lost Ark

For Episode 154 of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I’m going back to one of my earliest and most memorable interviews: a conversation with German actor Wolf Kahler, best known to film fans as Colonel Dietrich in Raiders of the Lost Ark.Kahler’s wonderfully imposing performance as the Nazi officer who helps Belloq search for the Ark is one of the many unforgettable supporting performances in Spielberg’s 1981 adventure. But there’s much more to his career than one film.In this episode, Wolf talks about his acting career, how he came to be cast in Raiders of the Lost Ark, working with Steven Spielberg and the cast, and his memories of making one of the most beloved adventure films ever made.It’s also a chance to revisit the making of Raiders from the perspective of someone who was actually there — and to hear stories from behind the scenes that you won’t find in the finished film.Wolf Kahler has appeared in numerous films and television productions, often playing German military characters, including The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission, The Bourne Identity, The Remains of the Day, Charlotte Gray, Wonder Woman and The Great Escaper.So, grab your hat, whip and favourite archaeological artefact, and join me for a conversation with Colonel Dietrich himself.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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Brad Fiedel wrote one of the most recognisable pieces of music in film history, and he did it on a drum machine, a sequencer and a keyboard chained together with a computer ribbon cable, before MIDI was really a thing. The famous lurch in the rhythm is him hitting a button by hand and deciding the wobble was better than the fix. Years later Henry Mancini rang up wanting to record it with a big band, and the man writing the lead sheet couldn't work out the time signature.

There is a lot more to Brad than Terminator, and that's really what this conversation is about. He grew up inside his parents' school of the arts on Long Island, his dad a jazz musician, his mum a modern dancer who studied with Martha Graham. He spent years improvising live for dance classes, which turned out to be exactly the muscle a film composer needs, though nobody told him that at the time. He nearly signed to Columbia. He played keys for Hall and Oates in 1974 and jammed with the band that became the E Street Band. He was working with Arthur Miller and Vanessa Redgrave before James Cameron ever called.We get into temp tracks and why he never did his best work against one, when a scene is better off with no music at all, the direction Cameron gave him on the canal chase in T2, and the moment after the True Lies sessions when a small voice told him he was finished. These days his regular gig is writing musicals with first graders in Santa Barbara, and he's very clear that he gets as much out of it as they do.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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Episode 152: John Goodson (Part 1)

John Goodson is a model maker and digital artist who spent more than three decades at ILM. His credits span The Rocketeer, Star Trek: First Contact, the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Rogue One, and most recently The Mandalorian and Grogu. In this first of two episodes, I talk to John about his lifelong obsession with spacecraft and model-making, how he got to ILM, what the model shop was like at its peak, and the craft philosophy that has defined his career. In this episode:

• Growing up obsessed with Lost in Space, Star Log, and the making-of books that shaped his ambitions
• Writing letters to ILM at age 14 — and getting politely told to stop
• How a childhood friendship and a homemade recreation of the Battle of Hoth eventually led to his first visit to ILM
• The advice that sent him back to finish school — and why it was the right call
• Getting hired for one week on Body Wars and spending the first three days hiding in the model shop hoping nobody would notice
• What the ILM model shop culture was like at its peak, and what he absorbed from Bill George, Lorne Peterson, Larry Tan, and the rest of that team
• The 18-foot Titanic model for Ghostbusters II and learning to just start building
• The 33-foot Hindenburg for The Rocketeer — eight months of construction, a night shoot at a decommissioned Air Force base, kerosene running out of the holes, and a cherry picker at 25 feet
• The pasta trick, pancake syrup, and other unexpected materials that found their way into ILM shots
• Watching the digital wave arrive and feeling like parts of the machine were being taken away
• The transition to digital model-making and eventually finding his footing with Mari
• What it felt like to return to physical model-making for The Mandalorian — and what was hardest about working without the model shop around him
• The mechanical language of spacecraft: why weathering works, what Star Crash got wrong, and the disposable camera exercise that taught a kit-bash class to see the real world differently
• How the Razor Crest started as a 3D-printed assembly that couldn't survive construction — and what he did about it

Part two is coming soon...

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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Ian Hunter has spent four decades building miniatures, supervising visual effects and thinking like a filmmaker on some of the most demanding productions in Hollywood. In this episode, he traces a career that began in a garden shed with a punched-up piece of German black velvet and ended up — via James Cameron, Tim Burton, the Coen Brothers, and Christopher Nolan — on some of the most iconic screens in the world.

Ian grew up surrounded by art. His father painted oils and acrylics, played music and did pastel portraits, and encouraged his three sons to make things — even when those things destroyed the materials he'd given them. The moment that really clicked, Ian recalls, was being handed a model kit as a kid and taking to it immediately. That creative instinct only grew stronger. In high school, he and his brothers were making Super 8 films, scratching laser effects onto the film with a pin and blowing up overloaded resistors for explosions. One of those films required them to fake-rob a local bank — and the encounter that followed, with the surprisingly enthusiastic vice president of the Monrovia Wells Fargo, led to a meeting with the mother of Rick Baker, whose work Ian had recently encountered in a traveling special effects exhibition and been completely floored by.

After drifting away from an aerospace course at Cal Poly Pomona and working in an acid bath plastics factory, Ian answered a classified ad looking for model makers — and on the strength of a modest portfolio, was hired the same day. His first feature was The Abyss. He and fellow model maker Jim McGee built the flooded engine room of the Montana submarine with almost no direction beyond James Cameron's bare-bones description, and shipped it to South Carolina having never seen a frame of the live action. The production was not without its disasters — Ian found himself entangled in the notorious wax crane fiasco, and talks about the valuable early lesson of knowing when to call something out before it goes wrong.

From there, a friend pointed him toward Boss Film, Richard Edlund's company in Marina del Rey, where a chance encounter with departing model supervisor Mark Stetson changed everything. What was supposed to be a one-week favour on a music video turned into six years. Working with Stetson took Ian from being a junior model maker building things in isolation to visiting sets, talking directly with directors, and understanding that miniature work only succeeds when it becomes invisible — just more shots in a movie, telling the story rather than showing off the technique.

Among the projects from that period, Ian talks at length about Total Recall — including the behind-the-scenes chaos of a scale miscommunication on the final day of shooting, a scene involving a little person that nobody had accounted for, and the moment he glued a Coke can to a model building because they were running out of time. That Coke can, dressed up and shot from the front, made it into the finished film. So did one in Waterworld. And Inception. And Interstellar. And, after the story apparently got around, director Fede Álvarez greeted Ian on Alien: Romulus by asking exactly where he was planning to hide it.

Ian built the suburb for Edward Scissorhands — deliberately making it more bland and mundane than real life — and talks about one of his proudest in-camera shots: the final view through the bedroom window and out over the snow-dusted neighbourhood, achieved with a 1:24 scale model and real snow shakers on the night. On Batman Returns he built the Penguin's zoo, and describes receiving one of his all-time favourite compliments from Tim Burton — who, after watching a pyrotechnics test, asked simply: "Where did you shoot this?" Not realising he was looking at a miniature. The zoo also gave Ian one of his best examples of a happy accident: a polar bear sculpture that was supposed to explode but instead toppled slowly sideways with flames coming out of its feet. Tim Burton loved it. The entire subsequent engineering challenge was figuring out how to recreate the mistake.
On the X-Files movie, Ian and his partner Matthew Gratzner built a collapsing federal building on a tight budget, referencing Oklahoma City bombing photographs for the detail of damaged concrete and exposed floors. The late Roger Ebert reviewed the finished film and said the sequence should have been cut — because it was too reminiscent of real tragedy. Ian reflects on that as a marker: they'd gotten past the technique and into the emotion.

The conversation turns to Christopher Nolan, with whom Ian has worked across multiple films. Ian describes Nolan as collaborative but definitive, someone who discusses a shot in depth and then tells you exactly what he wants. He talks about the liberation Nolan offered on Interstellar when he told the crew to stop following the previs — pre-vis is just a guy at a computer on a Friday trying to get the shot out the door, Nolan told them; if you can see a better angle, do that instead. The result was that the miniature crew started shooting faster, and a number of shots that had been planned as digital moved across to the physical side. Ian also describes the meticulous sun-angle calculation that went into matching the Inception hospital sequence — setting up models in a parking lot at a precisely calculated skewed angle to hit the exact quality of light that had been captured in Calgary on a specific date.

On First Man with Damien Chazelle, Ian had drawn storyboards before the first meeting proposing a documentary approach — cameras attached to the spacecraft, nothing sweeping or cinematic, everything either very close or very wide as if shot from another ship. Chazelle walked in and described exactly the same idea. They spent twenty minutes together going through the sequence, working to an animatic cut to music, and Ian went off and shot it. That shorthand — that moment of being in sync before the conversation has really started — is something Ian describes as central to how he has survived in an industry where so many practical effects houses have not. He's a model maker, yes. But more than that, he's a filmmaker.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this episode I chat with visual effects supervisor, second unit director and digital pre-visualisation pioneer David Dozoretz about a career that traces the entire arc of how modern filmmaking shifted from analogue to digital — and how, somewhere in the middle of that shift, pre-vis went from a curious side experiment to a fundamental part of how films get planned and shot.

David talks about growing up in Phoenix, falling in love with cinema the day his sister snuck him into the projection booth at the Cine Capri during The Empire Strikes Back asteroid sequence, and how a chance encounter with a Lucasfilm coffee-table book in a university bookstore set him on the path to ILM. He arrived at ILM in 1991 as an intern, became known as "the computer nerd in the art department and the art nerd in the computer department," and ended up bridging the gap between the two as digital began to take over.

We get into his first feature — the original Jurassic Park — his year-long apprenticeship in the legendary ILM art department alongside Doug Chiang, Ty Ellingson, Harley Jessup, Mark Moore and Stefan Dechant, and the time he had to split a $1,400 piece of 3D software into two $700 purchase orders to get round ILM's general-manager sign-off threshold. It's a small story but it tells you everything about the era — digital tools were arriving faster than the institutions running things knew what to do with them.

A big part of the conversation focuses on the early years of digital pre-visualisation. David did the first major digital previs sequence in mainstream cinema — the train and helicopter sequence in Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible, the work John Knoll asked him to do that's now credited as one of the reasons the sequence got greenlit. From there he went on to spend four years working with George Lucas on The Phantom Menace, building the entire pod race in previs (a 25-minute version that almost no one has ever seen got whittled down to the 9-and-a-half-minute final), establishing his now-famous three rules of previs (no textures, no motion blur, no shadows) and then immediately having to break all three of them to convey the sense of speed and floating in the pod race itself.

There are some lovely George Lucas stories too, including the time George walked into the editing room and reacted to David's droid-factory post-vis with "honestly, I was a little worried about that one — looks like it's gonna work," and the moment when George trailed off mid-sentence trying to describe a desert landscape and David — a 21-year-old kid — finished the thought with "John Ford?", which David thinks is the moment Lucas decided he could trust him. Later in the conversation we move into David's own company, Persistence of Vision, and his work on Titan A.E., Behind Enemy Lines, JJ Abrams' Mission: Impossible III, the 2009 Star Trek reboot (including the previs realisation that Vulcan being orange meant the costumes — originally designed to evoke 70s NASA — had to be completely redesigned) and Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, where David served as second unit director on the first digital stereoscopic film and the production was effectively beta-testing the cameras Jim Cameron was building for Avatar.

We finish on Zafari, David's 52-episode children's animated series rendered almost entirely in Unreal Engine — one of the earliest large-scale uses of real-time rendering in mainstream animation, which saved 30% of the production budget — and on a wider conversation about AI, the future of filmmaking, the importance of human authenticity, and David's lovely closing thought: study the art and history of cinema, study the drawing, not just the pencil. The tools will keep changing. The language won't.

Topics covered

• Growing up in Phoenix and the Cine Capri projection-booth moment during Empire
• Discovering The Art of Special Effects book and the road to an ILM internship
• Joining the ILM art department in 1991 alongside Doug Chiang, Ty Ellingson, Harley Jessup and Mark Moore
• Bridging the art and computer departments as digital arrived at ILM
• The $1,400 / two-$700-purchase-orders workaround for buying 3D software
• Working on the original Jurassic Park as his first feature
• Doing previs for the Star Wars Special Editions (the dewback shots, Mos Eisley fly-bys)
• John Knoll asking him to previsualise the train-and-helicopter sequence on Mission: Impossible
• How that previs is credited as one of the reasons the sequence got greenlit
• Joining the new Skywalker Ranch art department under George Lucas
• Four years on The Phantom Menace and the 25-minute version of the pod race
• The three rules of previs (no textures, no motion blur, no shadows) — and breaking all of them to make the pod race work
• George Lucas reacting to the droid factory post-vis ("looks like it's gonna work")
• The Jake Lloyd head-turn morph that saved a reshoot
• Why pod racers go 500 mph in some shots and 2,000 mph in others
• The cinematographer who declared previs "shit" — and was overruled by the studio
• Founding Persistence of Vision and the move from Lucas to wider Hollywood
• Titan A.E. and the Don Bluth / Gary Goldman Phoenix animation studio
• Behind Enemy Lines and pre-vising aerial action
• Mission: Impossible III with JJ Abrams — the Shanghai building swing and the windmill helicopter sequence
• The Star Trek reboot orbital skydive — and how previs forced a costume redesign because Vulcan was orange
• Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D as second unit director, using Jim Cameron's pre-Avatar cameras
• Zafari, Unreal Engine, and saving 30% of an animated TV budget through real-time rendering
• The shift from analogue to digital to 3D to real-time to AI — and what stays constant
• Dennis Muren's wisdom on authenticity at the Jurassic Park wrap party
• Why a human premium will remain in an AI-augmented filmmaking world
• George Lucas, John Ford and the moment a 21-year-old earned a director's trust
• The advice David gives to young filmmakers: study the drawing, not just the pencil

Support the Podcast

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you'd like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: patreon.com/jamiebenning Watch on YouTube Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: youtube.com/filmumentaries

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this episode, I chat with creature effects artist, puppeteer and digital pioneer Craig Caton-Largent about a career that arguably traces the entire arc of modern visual effects — from foam latex and animatronics to motion control, performance capture and full CG animation.

Craig talks about growing up on a sheep and cattle ranch in Washington State, being captivated by the 1960s Batman TV show and then Planet of the Apes, and teaching himself prosthetics from Dick Smith's Monster Makeup Handbook. After tracking down Dick Smith's address in Who's Who in America, he wrote a letter that led to a year of mentorship over cassette tapes and ultimately introductions to Rick Baker, Stan Winston and Tom Burman.

We get into his first job on Charles Band's Metal Storm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn, working on the Olympic alien for the 1984 closing ceremonies, sculpting barnacles on Cocoon, building Spock's seamless silicone ears on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, undulating menacingly under shaving cream on Larry Cohen's The Stuff, and puppeteering Slimer's mouth on the original Ghostbusters. A big part of the conversation focuses on Jurassic Park, including the design evolution of the T-Rex, the helicopter convention moment that led to the McFadden motion base, the logistics of moving the full-size animatronic across the San Fernando Valley at night, and Craig's work as the Raptor puppeteer, including the now-legendary "head tilt" at the kitchen window that earned an on-set "It's like Alien, I love it" from Spielberg.

We also talk about Craig's twenty-year stint as the caretaker, or "doctor", to the original ET puppet, including the time the LAPD turned up at his garage door thinking he was running a crack lab while he was actually repainting ET.

Plus the story of how Stan Winston handing him a couple of SGI machines led, almost overnight, to him becoming one of the eight co-founders of Digital Domain alongside James Cameron and Scott Ross. Later in the conversation we move into Craig's animation career as a final layout artist and character TD at DreamWorks and Disney, with credits on Tangled, Rise of the Guardians, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Turbo, and stories from working with Guillermo del Toro at DreamWorks. We finish on Craig's current role as Creative Director of the 3D Animation and Visual Effects department at the New York Film Academy in Burbank.

Topics covered

• Growing up on a Washington State ranch and falling in love with Planet of the Apes
• Famous Monsters of Filmland and Dick Smith's Monster Makeup Handbook
• Cold-writing to Dick Smith and a year of cassette-tape mentorship
• Arriving in Hollywood at the start of the "golden age" of effects
• First feature work on Metal Storm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn
• The closing ceremonies of the 1984 LA Olympics and Ron Cobb's alien
• Sculpting barnacles and cocoons for Cocoon (1985)
• Seamless silicone Spock ears on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
• The Stuff with Larry Cohen and "undulating menacingly"
• Puppeteering Slimer's mouth on Ghostbusters
• Designing the T-Rex around helicopter flight simulator technology
• Working with McFadden Simulation on the T-Rex motion base
• Moving the full-size T-Rex across the San Fernando Valley
• Building a 70lb Steadicam-rigged Raptor insert head for Jurassic Park
• Using parrots as reference for bird-like Raptor movement
• The kitchen porthole head tilt, and Spielberg's "It's like Alien" reaction
• Using Kermit the Frog's voice on set as the Raptor performer
• Twenty years as ET's "doctor", and the LAPD crack-lab incident
• ET's arm in a rifle case at JFK a week after 9/11
• Motion capture experiments and blood-spread effects on Interview with the Vampire
• A flying logo on an Amiga, and becoming a co-founder of Digital Domain
• Working with Stan Winston, James Cameron and Scott Ross
• Moving into animation: character rigging at Disney on Tangled
• Final layout and virtual camera work at DreamWorks on Rise of the Guardians, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Turbo
• Lunches with Guillermo del Toro in the DreamWorks canteen
• Pre-vis on the Total Recall remake with Len Wiseman
• Teaching the next generation at the New York Film Academy, Burbank
• The unique "intergalactic award" Spielberg gave Craig for puppeteering ET

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this episode, I chat with model maker Jim Davidson about his journey from a dinosaur-obsessed kid in the 1970s to working on some of the most memorable practical effects sequences in modern cinema. Jim talks about discovering the work of Ray Harryhausen, and how seeing Star Wars at the age of 12 made him realise that visual effects could be a real career.

We get into how a chance meeting with future Oscar-winning art director Robert Stromberg led to his first break in the industry, and how that snowballed into working with the Skotak brothers on major productions. Jim shares detailed insights into the making of the nuclear nightmare sequence in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, including how the miniature buildings were constructed, destroyed, and reset using a combination of breakaway materials, air cannons and practical ingenuity.

We also talk about his work on Batman Returns, the realities of working in small, tight-knit effects crews, and the creative problem-solving that defined that era of filmmaking. A big part of the conversation focuses on the industry shift following Jurassic Park, when CGI began to replace large-scale practical effects. Jim reflects on witnessing that transition first-hand, and why he chose not to move into digital work.

There’s also discussion of his later work, including returning to stop motion for Creepshow, bringing things full circle back to the techniques that first inspired him. It’s a fascinating look at a very specific window in film history, from someone who was right in the middle of it. Topics Covered

• Growing up in the 1970s and early creative influences
• Discovering Ray Harryhausen and stop motion
• The impact of Star Wars on a generation
• Breaking into the film industry through Robert Stromberg
• Early work and first film projects
• Working with the Skotak brothers
• Practical effects techniques on Terminator 2
• Building and destroying miniature cities
• In-camera effects vs optical compositing
• Working on Batman Returns miniatures
• Life on practical effects crews in the 80s and 90s
• The rise of CGI after Jurassic Park
• Transition from analog to digital workflows
• Matte painting: traditional vs Photoshop
• Returning to stop motion on Creepshow
• Reflections on a career in practical effects

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

Episode 147: John Duncan

In this episode, I’m joined by model maker John Duncan, whose career spans nearly fifteen years at Industrial Light & Magic and includes work across Star Wars, Star Trek, Galaxy Quest, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Matrix and more.

John talks about his early fascination with building miniatures as a kid, making models out of paper and cardboard, and how that instinct to just try things eventually led him into the film industry. What started as architectural model work and a stint in television quickly turned into a career at ILM, beginning in 1993, where he arrived for what was meant to be a two-week job and stayed for over a decade .We get into the realities of model making for film, learning to build for the camera rather than for close inspection, working under tight deadlines, and letting go of work when it needs to be modified or destroyed for the shot.

John also discusses his time as a concept model maker on the Star Wars prequels, working with Doug Chiang to create what he describes as “3D blueprints” for the wider production. These models helped bridge the gap between design, practical builds and digital assets, ensuring consistency across departments.There’s plenty here on specific projects too, including building the Enterprise-E for Star Trek: First Contact, working on the ships for Galaxy Quest, and contributing to the large-scale pirate ships in Pirates of the Caribbean. He also shares stories about unusual materials, problem-solving on the fly, and the collaborative nature of the ILM model shop.

We also talk about the shift from practical models to digital effects, where miniatures still have a place today, and why physical builds continue to resonate with filmmakers and audiences alike.John is thoughtful, practical, and clearly still passionate about the craft. This is a great insight into a side of filmmaking that often goes unnoticed, but is absolutely fundamental to how these films were made.

Topics covered

• Growing up building models and early creative influences
• First steps into the film industry via architectural models
• Joining ILM in 1993 and working alongside industry legends
• Building models for camera vs building for display
• Working on Star Trek: First Contact and Galaxy Quest
• Concept model making on the Star Wars prequels
• Collaborating with Doug Chiang and George Lucas
• The idea of “3D blueprints” in film production
• Practical effects vs digital effects
• Working on Pirates of the Caribbean
• Materials, techniques and problem-solving in the model shop
• Replica prop community and fan research
• Why physical models still matter

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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In this episode, I sit down with Don Bies – former Lucasfilm archivist and special effects artist at ILM – for a deep dive into his career and his time inside the Star Wars archive. Don takes me right back to his childhood in Chicago, where a viewing of the 1931 Frankenstein sparked a lifelong fascination with makeup effects and filmmaking . From experimenting with homemade prosthetics to building a full-size R2-D2, his early passion eventually led him to California. We talk about his first major break working on The Fly, where he contributed to several effects – many of which ended up on the cutting room floor, but gave him invaluable experience. From there, Don’s path into Lucasfilm begins, starting with operating R2-D2 on commercials alongside Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew and even George Lucas. That connection ultimately led to him working on the Lucasfilm archives. This is where things get really interesting. Don describes what it was like stepping into a warehouse full of original Star Wars props, models and documents – much of it undocumented and at risk of being lost or discarded . He shares stories of discovering key items like Darth Vader’s helmet hidden in a crate, uncovering original manuscripts and audio recordings, and building one of the first digital catalogues of the collection. We also get into:

• His role in early Lucasfilm exhibitions and the growth of the archive
• Working at Skywalker Ranch and the unique creative environment there
• The transition period between Return of the Jedi and the Special Editions
• Wearing multiple costumes (including Boba Fett) during the Special Edition shoots
• The reality of preserving film history inside a working production company

It’s a brilliant conversation that really captures a moment in time when Star Wars history could easily have been lost – and the people who helped save it.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I’m joined by creature effects designer Alec Gillis, founder of Studio Gillis and co-founder of Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. (ADI) alongside Tom Woodruff Jr.Alec has spent more than four decades helping bring some of cinema’s most memorable creatures to life.

After beginning his career working under the legendary Stan Winston, he went on to contribute to films including Aliens, Predator, Alien³, Tremors, Death Becomes Her, Starship Troopers and many more.In this conversation we talk about how a childhood encounter with Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts set him on this path, the early days building stop-motion creatures in his parents’ garage, working for Roger Corman alongside a young James Cameron, and what it was like joining Stan Winston Studio during one of the most exciting periods in creature effects history.

We also talk about the eight-week scramble to build the Predator, working with David Fincher on Alien³, forming ADI with Tom Woodruff Jr., and how practical creature effects continue to evolve in an industry now dominated by digital tools.

This interview was recorded remotely, but I recently had the chance to visit Alec in Los Angeles while filming interviews for our upcoming Joe Alves documentary, where we spoke in person about his work on Jaws 3-D.

Topics discussed

• Discovering movie magic through Ray Harryhausen
• Building stop-motion creatures as a kid
• Learning the craft during the Roger Corman years
• Meeting and working alongside James Cameron
• Life inside Stan Winston Studio
• Creating the Predator in just eight weeks
• The production of Alien³ and working with David Fincher
• Founding Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. with Tom Woodruff Jr.
• Practical effects in the digital era
• Mentoring the next generation of creature artistsSupport the Podcast

I hope you enjoy it.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this episode, I chat with Academy Award-winning sound designer Randy Thom about his journey from college radio to shaping the soundscapes of some of cinema’s most iconic films.We discuss:

• Growing up loving movies and discovering sound via college radio in Ohio
• Making a cold call to Walter Murch and landing a job on Apocalypse Now
• Early sound experiments at Skywalker Ranch
• Recording effects for The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Collaborating with Robert Zemeckis and David Lynch
• Why sound should be involved in pre-production
• The evolution from analog to digital workflows
• The creative and economic impact of AI on film sound
• The philosophy behind “inventing” sonic space
• Winning an Oscar for The Right Stuff
• Winning a BAFTA for The Revenant

Randy also reflects on mentorship, collaboration at Skywalker Ranch, and why storytelling always matters more than authenticity.Listen now and take a deep dive into the craft of cinematic sound.

See below for all the links you might need!

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

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Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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This is a short bonus episode with a very specific purpose. Patrick Tyndall and I are in the middle of a GoFundMe campaign to get us back to Los Angeles to finish filming Not Your Average Joe, our documentary about legendary production designer Joe Alves. This episode is me explaining where the project is at, what we’ve already achieved, and why this upcoming LA trip feels so important. We’ll be in Los Angeles from 22–28 February 2026, filming interviews and B-roll that cover some key chapters of Joe’s life and career, including:

• Joe’s short but intense motor racing career, including racing alongside Dickie Smothers
• The story of Joe introducing a major Hollywood actor to racing, setting them on a path to a serious motorsport career
• An interview with Alec Gillis the effects artist who built the articulated sharks for Jaws 3
• A conversation with Ann Dusenberry, who worked closely with Joe on Jaws 2
• An interview with Dean Cundey, cinematographer on Escape from New York
• Ongoing efforts to involve Steven Spielberg in the project

The documentary has only been shot over a relatively small number of days so far, all fitted around regular jobs and family life, but the material we’ve captured already has been incredible. This next trip is about joining the dots and getting the remaining pieces that will allow us to bring Joe’s story properly over the finish line. At the time of recording, the GoFundMe is sitting at around $1,000, and we need roughly $3,000 to make the trip work. Any contribution helps, but just as importantly, sharing the campaign on social media genuinely makes a difference. If you’ve ever enjoyed the podcast, the articles, or the behind-the-scenes conversations, this is me asking for a bit of help to make sure this story gets told. 

Donate here!

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I’m joined by filmmaker John Campopiano and producer Jim Beller to talk about their new documentary, The Farmer and the Shark. The film centres on Craig Kingsbury, a farmer from Martha’s Vineyard who appeared in Jaws (1975), playing Ben Gardner, the local fisherman whose abandoned boat is discovered by Chief Brody early in the film.
 
From that small but unforgettable role, the documentary explores Craig’s life, his connection to the island, and how his story intersects with the legacy of Jaws.

John Campopiano is the director of the film and is known for documentaries including Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary and Pennywise: The Story of IT. Jim Beller is one of the producers of The Farmer and the Shark - former producer of my Inside Jaws - A Filmumentary and all round Jaws expert.

I should note that I haven’t seen the finished film yet, so this conversation focuses on the making of the documentary, how the project came together, why Craig Kingsbury’s story stood out, earning trust, and shaping a film around a real person whose life briefly intersected with a cinematic landmark. If you’re looking for a calm, thoughtful conversation about film history, storytelling, and the people behind the scenes, I hope this episode provides a welcome distraction. Guests

• John Campopiano — Director
• Jim Beller — Producer

Films Discussed

• The Farmer and the Shark
• Jaws (1975)

Support the Podcast - If you enjoy The Filmumentaries Podcast, you can support the show on Patreon. Your support helps cover the time, research, travel, and production costs involved in making these episodes. Thanks for listening.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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Jon's Kickstarter Link

Summary
In this conversation, Jon Spira discusses his new book 'I'll Settle for Nothingness: Conversations with Mike Hodges', detailing the genesis of the book, his friendship with the legendary filmmaker, and the exploration of Hodges' versatile career. The discussion covers many things including the making of 'Morons from Outer Space', the challenges of unproduced films, and the emotional journey of writing the book. Spira also shares insights into Hodges' legacy, his experiences with the BFI, and the Kickstarter campaign for the book's publication.

Takeaways
The book is a collection of conversations with Mike Hodges.
Jon Spira's friendship with Hodges developed through their shared love of cinema.
'Morons from Outer Space' is a film that has gained a cult following despite its initial failure.
Hodges was a versatile filmmaker, working across various genres.
The Terminal Man is a significant film that was poorly marketed and overlooked.
Hodges had many unproduced films that reflect his creative vision.
The BFI is preserving Hodges' legacy through his film archive.
Spira aims to honor Hodges' memory through this book.
The emotional journey of writing the book was profound for Spira.
The Kickstarter campaign is a way to celebrate Hodges' work and legacy. 

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

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Rob Spera is a film and television director, educator, and the author of Film/TV Director’s Field Manual: 70 Maxims to Change Your Filmmaking. With decades of experience directing features, episodic television, and theatre, Rob brings a deeply practical, human-centred approach to directing and leadership. In this conversation, we discuss:

• Why Rob describes his book as an “anti-textbook”
• The idea that the camera’s job is to photograph subtext
• Building non-redundant frames that invite the audience to participate
• Why kindness and psychological safety are essential creative tools
• Letting go of control and empowering collaborators
• What “write what you know” really means
• How directors can practise their craft between jobs

Film/TV Director’s Field Manual – available via Amazon and Rob’s website

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I’m joined by Laurent Hopman and Renaud Roche, the writer and artist behind the acclaimed graphic novel Lucas Wars, which tells the behind-the-scenes story of the making of Star Wars from a deeply personal, human perspective. Laurent shares his background as an entertainment journalist and how years of research, interviews, books and documentaries fed into the script. Renaud talks about coming from a traditional animation and storyboarding background, studying at Gobelins in Paris, and how cinematic visual language shaped the way he approached the book’s artwork. We discuss:

• Why the emotional journey of George Lucas became the heart of the story
• How the pair condensed vast amounts of historical research into a tightly structured graphic novel
• The challenge of visually dramatising meetings, offices and creative conflict
• The relationship between Lucas and Spielberg, and how it shapes both volume one and the upcoming sequel
• The meaning behind the iconic twin suns cover
• Visiting Skywalker Ranch and Lucasfilm after the book’s release
• Balancing historical accuracy with storytelling
• Why Lucas Wars connected with readers beyond the core Star Wars fandom

We also talk about the upcoming second volume, which covers The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and how expanding into Spielberg’s world adds a new layer to the story. As always, if you enjoy the podcast and would like to support what I do, you can find me on Patreon, and the show is also available on YouTube if you prefer to watch the interviews.

BUY IT HERE

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I speak with art director and supervising art director Dominic Masters, whose decades-long career spans some of the biggest films and series of the last 40 years. He grew up around movie sets thanks to his father, the legendary production designer Tony Masters (2001: A Space Odyssey, Papillon, Dune), and started his own journey at 19 when he spent eight months in China on Tai-Pan — the first Western movie ever shot there. 

Dom talks about learning the foundational skills of drafting, the early struggles of finding work in the British film industry of the mid-80s, and the unique lifestyle of moving from production to production — that strange micro-community that forms on set, often in far-flung locations. 

 We cover his experiences on Titanic working under James Cameron, the shift from physical sets to set extensions and digital workflows, the evolution of the art department, and how shows like House of the Dragon demand an enormous level of coordination, creativity and technical precision. We also talk about the British Film Designers Guild, the camaraderie that forms in the art department, and his personal creative outlets, photography and music, that keep him balanced between jobs. 

It’s a wide-ranging, honest conversation with someone who has seen the industry evolve from the studio backlots of the 1970s to enormous contemporary productions. Topics discussed

• Growing up around film sets and learning from legendary designers
• His first job on Tai-Pan in 1985 and the experience of shooting in China
• The hierarchy and craft of the art department
• Collaboration with directors, designers, construction and VFX
• Working on Titanic and the extraordinary scale of the build
• The Harry Potter films, James Bond films, and shifting directors
• The intensity and scale of House of the Dragon
• Surviving the freelance lifestyle and industry downturns
• Creative outlets outside the job

Guest Dominic Masters – Art Director / Supervising Art Director
Selected credits: House of the Dragon, Belfast, Wonder Woman, Now You See Me 2, Casino Royale, Harry Potter, Titanic, The World Is Not Enough, The Avengers.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast I speak with author and film historian Jay Glennie about his new book, The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time ...In Hollywood. Jay has a real gift for pulling together people, memories and materials, and this book is packed with insight from the cast and crew, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Quentin himself.We get into how long Quentin carried the idea for the film, the script secrecy following The Hateful Eight leak, and the vital work of the ADs, casting team, DP, production designer and producers. Jay talks about the careful balancing act of handling contradictory memories, how he preserves the voices of the people he interviews, and how he approaches a project that is still fresh in everyone’s mind. We also look at what comes next in his ten book Tarantino series.

Big thanks to Jay and to TITAN books.

Buy Jay Glennie’s book - published by TITAN.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

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In this bonus episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, host Jamie Benning, that's me... talks with author and filmmaker John Walsh about his new book The Art and Making of Gladiator II.

Walsh discusses how he was approached by Abrams Books and Paramount Pictures to chronicle the creation of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel, offering rare insights into the production design, visual effects, and creative collaboration behind one of the most ambitious films of the decade.

The conversation explores how Walsh handled the challenge of documenting a still-in-production movie, his access to thousands of behind-the-scenes images, and the process of balancing art direction, photography, and storytelling in an official studio book. We also look ahead to Walsh’s next project — a deep dive into The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and reflect on the enduring value of physical “making-of” books in today’s digital film culture.

BUY THE BOOK HERE

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

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In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I sit down with sibling filmmakers Claire and Anthony Bueno, the creative team behind Cleanin’ Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters - a feature documentary more than a decade in the making, and the definitive oral history of one of the most beloved comedies of all time.

The Buenos spent years interviewing dozens of cast and crew members from the original Ghostbusters, including Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, and the late Harold Ramis. The result is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes portrait that captures both the technical wizardry and the creative spirit that defined the 1984 classic.

Claire’s new companion book, also titled Cleanin’ Up the Town, builds upon the documentary by presenting full-length interviews, previously unseen material, and new reflections from the filmmakers and craftspeople who brought Ghostbusters to life. In our conversation, Claire and Anthony share what it took to get the project made -the years of persistence, the challenges of rights and access, and the rewards of telling such a beloved story from a fan’s perspective.

Whether you’re a lifelong Ghostbusters enthusiast or simply interested in independent documentary filmmaking, this is a fascinating glimpse into the dedication required to bring such a massive project to life.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
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Episode 136: A Martha’s Vineyard special report on the Joe Alves Documentary shoot.

This week’s episode is a little different. It is a behind the scenes update on our ongoing feature documentary about production designer and director Joe Alves (Jaws, Close Encounters, Escape from New York, Jaws 2, Jaws 3D). I take you through our trip to Martha’s Vineyard in June 2024 to capture Joe’s return to the island for the 50th anniversary of Jaws. Thanks to your generosity, we raised over £7,000 to cover the travel, ferry, car hire, and accommodation. Every penny went into the shoot. In this episode, I share:

• The challenges and triumphs of making the trip possible
• Shooting new interviews with Joe Alves, Marty Milner, Charles de Lauzirika, and Richard Dreyfuss
• Filming at iconic Jaws locations including Menemsha and the 4th July beach.
• The overwhelming warmth of the Jaws community and the atmosphere of the anniversary celebrations
• How the project has evolved from a short film idea into a full feature documentary
• Your support is still needed!

We still have more to do, including chasing interviews with Dean Cundey, John Carpenter, Lea Thompson, and Steven Spielberg. If you would like to support the film, visit the GoFundMe link in the show notes. Thanks again for helping us push this project forward. We could not do it without you.

Support the documentary GoFundMe

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

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Cinema historian Nigel Smith joins Jamie to explore the hidden history of London’s picture houses. In particular the Egyptian-style Carlton in Islington. Nigel brings these spaces back to life through stories, archives, and first-hand recollections. In this episode, Nigel and Jamie discuss:

• How London’s old cinemas became coffee shops, bingo halls, and churches
• The difference between “going to the pictures” in the 1930s–50s and cinema-going today
• How local archives, trade papers, and oral histories help piece together forgotten stories
• Why repertory and community cinemas may hold the key to the future of film-going
• Nigel’s Memory Palaces project, documenting almost 100 cinema buildings with photos and stories

Find more from Nigel:
memorypalaces.co.uk and Instagram @nigelsmithwalks.



This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

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Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I talk with James Kahn, the novelist behind some of the most iconic movie novelizations of the 1980s, including Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Goonies, and Poltergeist. James shares how a chance encounter while working as an ER doctor in Santa Monica led him onto the set of ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, where he met Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg, an opportunity that set his writing career in motion. We discuss:

• How James went from emergency medicine to Hollywood writer
• His early break writing the Poltergeist novelization
• The creative freedom Spielberg gave him on Temple of Doom, The Goonies, and others
• Writing Return of the Jedi under intense secrecy — including how George Lucas gave him a decoy script where Luke kills the Emperor
• Inventing backstory details that became “canon” for decades, like Ben and Owen being brothers and hints about Anakin’s fall into the lava pits
• Giving Short Round his own chapter and exploring Mikey’s POV in The Goonies
• How his books helped fans relive these films long before home video
• Why a great novelization is about more than retelling a screenplay
• His recent memoir, A Jedi Memoir: A Double Life, weaving together stories from Hollywood and emergency medicine

If you grew up with these books, this one’s packed with insights, behind-the-scenes stories, and moments of movie history you probably didn’t know. If you enjoy the show and want to help me keep making these conversations, please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon:

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In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I sit down with Tommy Williamson, a visual effects artist, prop maker, and lifelong creator whose career spans more than three decades. Tommy has worked on films including Spider-Man 2, Sin City, The Mist, Dune: Prophecy, and the modern masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth. Tommy shares his journey from building paper-craft UFOs as a kid to working alongside Guillermo del Toro and becoming one of the artists helping to bridge the worlds of practical effects and cutting-edge digital VFX. We also dive into his passion for prop replicas and his work as the creator behind Nerds and Makers, where he builds incredible recreations of iconic movie props. If you love behind-the-scenes filmmaking stories, prop-making secrets, and hearing from the artists who bring movie magic to life, this episode is for you. In this episode, we discuss:

• Tommy’s early love of model making and practical effects
• His first big break on the 1988 remake of The Blob
• Adapting to the digital VFX revolution after Jurassic Park
• Working closely with Guillermo del Toro on Pan’s Labyrinth
• The creative process behind his Nerds and Makers prop replicas
• Why keeping one foot in both practical and digital worlds makes him a better artist
• The importance of experimentation, curiosity, and lifelong creativity

“I’ve always had to make things. It’s absolutely in my DNA. Even now, I’ll work on a show all day and then spend my evenings printing a lightsaber or a blaster. I can’t not do it.” — Tommy Williamson

You can follow Tommy and see his incredible prop builds on Instagram: @nerdsandmakers



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Episode 132 - Dave Barclay - My Life With Animatronics. Movies, Puppets and Beyond!

At just 19 years old, Dave Barclay found himself stepping into the role of chief puppeteer for Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. It was the start of an extraordinary career in animatronics and puppetry that would see him bringing to life some of cinema’s most beloved and memorable characters. In this episode, Dave takes us back to his creative beginnings, growing up in a family of puppeteers, and the serendipitous chain of events that led from working in Hamleys toy shop to meeting Mark Hamill — and ultimately joining Stuart Freeborn’s Yoda team.

We cover:

• His early inspirations from Planet of the Apes to making masks at home.
• The technical and creative challenges of performing Yoda alongside Frank Oz.
• Becoming chief puppeteer for Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi.
• Working on The Dark Crystal, Little Shop of Horrors and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
• The importance of collaboration between puppeteers, animators, special effects teams and actors.
• The process of writing his new autobiography My Life with Animatronics, Movies, Puppets and Beyond, filled with stories and photos from across his career.

Dave’s journey is a mix of artistry, technical problem-solving, and being in the right place at the right time — but also about saying “yes” when opportunity knocks.

Listen now to hear stories from a man whose work has shaped how we see and believe in some of cinema’s most iconic creatures. Find Dave’s book:

My Life with Animatronics, Movies, Puppets and Beyond – available now at Cool Waters Productions.

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In this special bonus episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I take you behind the scenes of Propstore’s upcoming Los Angeles auction, featuring some truly jaw-dropping pieces of movie history. I was invited to a press preview at London’s Dorchester Hotel, where I spoke with Propstore’s Tim Lawes (Director of Consignment) and Stephen Lane (CEO and Founder) about some of the headline items, including:

• A screen- and photo-matched Darth Vader hero lightsaber from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi
• The iconic Jaws clapperboard with teeth, plus Bruce the shark’s eyes
• Jane Fonda’s Barbarella costume and blaster

We discuss the thrill of uncovering long-lost props, the stories behind these legendary items, and what it means for collectors to own a piece of cinematic history. The auction runs September 4–6, 2025, streamed online from Los Angeles, with the full catalogue available at propstore.com.

Next episode: My interview with puppeteer Dave Barclay, whose incredible career goes far beyond Jabba the Hutt.

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In episode 131 of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I sit down with director Phil Hawkins to talk about his journey from a kid obsessed with Jurassic Park and Star Wars to a filmmaker directing commercials, indie features, and ambitious projects like Star Wars: Origins and the Sky Original Robin in the Hoods.

Phil shares how he taught himself filmmaking as a teenager, cutting together VHS tapes and roping in friends to create homemade sci-fi adventures. We discuss how this DIY approach evolved into making shorts and, later, a career in commercials – where he honed his craft in visual storytelling, working with big crews, and balancing creative ambition with tight schedules. We also talk about his fan-favourite short film Star Wars: Origins, which went viral for its bold concept and cinematic scale, and how it helped open doors to bigger opportunities, including his recent family feature Robin in the Hoods.

Along the way, Phil reflects on the importance of collaboration, and the lessons learned from juggling creativity with industry realities. If you’re interested in how a director moves from self-taught beginnings to studio-backed projects while staying true to his passion, this is a conversation worth hearing.

Listen now to hear:

• How VHS edits and fan films became Phil’s film school.
• The leap from shorts to commercials – and what commercials teach about storytelling.
• Making Star Wars: Origins and the risks and rewards of fan filmmaking.
• Crafting Robin in the Hoods and wrangling a cast of young actors for an adventure film.
• Phil’s thoughts on building a creative, respectful set environment.

Star Wars Origins
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Episode 130 – Laurent Bouzereau on “Jaws at 50” In this special episode, I catch up with the legendary documentary filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau to discuss his latest project, Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story, premiering Friday 11th July at 8pm on National Geographic and streaming the same day on Disney+. Laurent, whose behind-the-scenes work on Jaws, Indiana Jones, and Spielberg has inspired me for years, reflects on the challenges of revisiting Jaws 30 years after his original 1995 documentary. We talk about the new angles he explored, from Spielberg’s emotional recollections and rare 8mm footage to fresh perspectives from filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro, Jim Cameron, and Jordan Peele. Recorded on the fly on Martha’s Vineyard during the Jaws 50th celebrations, this short but meaningful conversation touches on the legacy of Jaws, the humanity behind the production, and how Laurent’s approach has shifted over the years. Also in this episode:

• An update on my Joe Alves documentary and the incredible support from GoFundMe donors
• A mention of my new two-part article on ILM's animation legacy: ILM Evolutions: Animation from Rotoscoping to Rango – now live on ILM.com

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Episode 129 – The Star Wars Influence: Live at the BFI’s Film on Film Festival In this special live episode, I join Doug Weir—Remastering Lead at the BFI—and post-production veteran Paul Collard on stage for a panel titled The Star Wars Influence, recorded at the BFI’s Film on Film Festival. Curated and hosted by Doug, the panel explores how George Lucas’s frustrations with the Hollywood studio system led to a wave of technological innovation that forever changed the filmmaking landscape. From the creation of ILM to the invention of motion control, EditDroid, SoundDroid, and digital cinema tools, we look at how Lucas empowered a generation of problem-solvers and helped pioneer the digital workflow we now take for granted. This conversation took place just before a rare screening of Star Wars from a 35mm Technicolor dye-transfer print—an experience I’ll be covering in more detail in a bonus episode coming soon. Topics include:

• Lucas’s break from the traditional studio system
• The founding of ILM and the Dykstraflex motion control rig
• VistaVision, optical printers, and visual effects R&D
• The origins of EditDroid and non-linear editing
• The value of Technicolor dye-transfer prints
• Lucasfilm’s wider influence on Pixar, Avid, and beyond

Thanks again to Doug and Paul—and to the BFI for hosting such a thoughtful and inspiring event.

Joe Alves Doco GoFundMe
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In this special archival episode, I speak with actor and musician Anthony Forrest, best known to Star Wars fans for playing the sandtrooper who famously waved Obi-Wan and Luke past an Imperial checkpoint with the words: “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for.” Originally recorded over a decade ago, this conversation explores Forrest’s original casting as “Fixer” in the cut Tosche Station scenes, his time filming in Tunisia, and how George Lucas unexpectedly tapped him to suit up as a trooper. Anthony also reflects on working alongside Alec Guinness, the skepticism among the British crew, and the surreal experience of flying home with champagne and Star Wars stickers courtesy of Sir Alec himself. Beyond Star Wars, we also discuss Anthony’s career in music, his time busking in the London Underground, and his low-budget feature The Ballad of Bob’s Garage. 

Listen in for rarely heard stories from behind the mask.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Deleted scenes from A New Hope
• Filming in Tunisia and London
• Busking and recording in the London Underground
• Alec Guinness and the 2007 Academy screening
• The Ballad of Bob’s Garage project

GoFundMe for our Martha’s Vineyard shoot — any support is greatly appreciated!

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This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

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In this bonus episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I catch up with returning guest Paul King, who you might remember from our previous conversation about his Shining locations documentary, Shine On. This time, Paul’s back with another nostalgic deep-dive — his new short documentary Beneath London: The Story of Alien War. We talk about the origins of the Alien-themed walkthrough experience that terrified visitors to London’s Trocadero in the early 1990s, how Paul tracked down rare archive footage and the people who made it happen, and why he thinks this story still has the potential to grow into a feature-length film. Watch Paul’s documentary on YouTube:
Beneath London: The Story of Alien War In the episode, we cover:

• What Alien War was and how it came together
• The strange story of how the creators got official backing from 20th Century Fox
• How the experience pushed boundaries long before immersive cinema became a thing
• Paul’s process of turning archival material and interviews into a compelling short film

I also share an update on my own documentary, Not Your Average Joe, about legendary Jaws production designer Joe Alves. I’m heading to Martha’s Vineyard this June to film key interviews during the 50th anniversary celebrations — a rare and important opportunity to capture these stories on location. If you’d like to support that project, you can find the GoFundMe here:

https://gofund.me/13795716

Thanks for listening. More behind-the-scenes conversations coming soon.

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

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Our Joe Alves GoFundMe Campaign
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Episode 129 – Max Evry on A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune – An Oral History.

In this episode, I speak with film journalist and author Max Evry about his brilliant and in-depth book A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune – An Oral History. What began as a 150-page entry in a cult film series soon grew into a 560-page epic — much like the film it covers.

Max and I talk about the origins of the project, how he managed to get David Lynch himself to take part, and why the oral history format was the right approach for telling this complex story. We also chat about the book’s structure, Max’s archive work, and how his own experiences as a filmmaker gave him a deeper empathy for the challenges Lynch faced.

There’s even a fascinating discussion about Max’s restoration of a long-lost scene featuring Molly Wryn — which you can now watch here:

You can find Max’s book here.

If you enjoy these behind-the-scenes deep dives, please consider supporting the podcast or sharing it with a film-loving friend - patreon.com/jamiebenning

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Our Joe Alves GoFundMe Campaign
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This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

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Episode 126 - Inside the BFI National Archives - Film on Film Festival - Special Episode

For this early release of the podcast, I’m taking you behind the scenes at the BFI National Archive in Berkhamsted. The reason for the early drop? Tickets for the BFI’s excellent Film on Film Festival go on sale to the public tomorrow, 9th May 2025, and I wanted to give you a bit of insight into what makes this event so special. The Film on Film Festival runs from the 12th to the 15th of June and is dedicated entirely to screenings on physical film – from 35mm to 16mm, and even nitrate. It’s a rare opportunity to experience films as they were originally shown, in all their analogue glory. While at the archive, I spoke with several of the experts who help make the festival possible and who work daily to preserve the history of cinema. You’ll hear from:

• James Bell – Senior Curator of Fiction and Programme Director, Film on Film Festival
• Chris Stenner – Film Laboratory Lead
• Sonia Genaitay – Curatorial Archivist
• Martin Coffill – Projectionist and QC
• David Jones – Film Scanning Lead

A huge thanks to Kieron Webb and Sarah Bemand for organising the day. It was a real privilege to explore the archive, meet the people who keep the machines running and the prints in circulation, and to share it all with you here. If you're attending the festival on the 12th, please do let me know and be sure to say "hi".

BFI Film on Film

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Episode 125 – Walter Murch: Suddenly Something Clicked (And 5 Years of Filmumentaries!) In this special 125th episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I’m joined once again by the legendary Walter Murch — editor, sound designer, director, author, and true philosopher of cinema. This also happens to mark five years since I launched the podcast, so it felt only fitting to celebrate with someone whose insights have shaped not only cinema itself but how we understand it.

Walter and I discuss his new book, Suddenly Something Clicked, which is due for release on 8th May 2025 via Faber & Faber (thank you to them for kindly sending me a preview copy). The book is a rich mix of theory, practice, and history — true to Walter’s description of it as a “twisted rope” of ideas. We cover everything from the evolution of editing, cinema as a biological and neurological phenomenon, the mysteries of sound design, and even the mechanics of live television editing.

Walter reflects on the analog vs digital shift, why sound should be metaphorical as well as realistic, and how editing mirrors the way our own bodies process time and perception. We also get into Return to Oz, AI in filmmaking, and his thoughts on films like Adolescence and 1917 that attempt to eliminate the cut entirely.

As ever, it’s a joy to speak with Walter — and I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did recording it.

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Suddenly Something Clicked

Original 1977 Star Wars Screening

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Hi all,

Here's Rachel's second and final report from Star Wars Celebration Japan.

We hope you enjoy it!

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As promised, here's report of the goings on in Tokyo at Star Wars Celebration, day one and two from Rachel Pearson. 

More tomorrow.

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In my previous episode I spoke with ADR specialist and dialoge editor Vickie Sampson. In that conversation she mentioned briefly about the time the Return of the Jedi audio recordings were stolen from her car. "That's a story for a whole other podcast", she remarked. So I contacted Vickie to ask her if she could record the story. She kindly obliged, and so here it is as a short Bonus episode for you folks!

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Episode 124 

Like many visual effects artists of a certain vintage, Jeff Okun didn’t plan on a career in VFX. In fact, by his own account, he didn't even plan to work in film at all. "I’m a completely accidental human being," he told me with a chuckle. His ambitions began on a very different stage — as a stand-up comic — until a sharply atheistic routine delivered at home earned him a lifetime ban from performing in front of his parents. Instead, Okun’s creative outlet took the form of magic tricks, homemade stunts, and Super 8 visual gags. “I would blow up model ships and fake fights in rush hour traffic,” he said, “and I’d be in the bushes filming with ketchup for blood.” All of this childhood chicanery ultimately gave way to a fascination with the trickery of movies — the kind of illusions you could only pull off with careful camera work, sleight-of-hand editing, and an appetite for mischief. Learning the Craft the Hard Way Okun's first job in film was with the legendary graphic designer and filmmaker Saul Bass. The experience was, in Okun's words, “awful,” but also profoundly formative. As Bass’s gopher-turned-editor, Okun was thrown into the deep end. “I hated him,” he laughed. “But he taught me everything: editing, sound, post-production supervision, how to shoot, how to frame. It was a masterclass.” Working for Bass meant operating in a visually precise, effects-heavy style — layering camera moves, creating in-camera effects, and often relying on labor-intensive optical printing processes. When optical houses turned down Bass’s business — too exacting, too expensive — Okun stepped in with cost-saving workarounds and pricing schemes that actually worked. “We doubled the budget, added a contingency, and somehow still landed exactly on target.”

“By the end of it, I ended up loving the man,” Okun said. “Not because he gave me a break, but because he was so specific and difficult to please that when you did please him, it meant something. He learned how to prep lineup sheets, how to composite with interpositives, and how to break down 140-layer optical shots into manageable components. “I was just the fix-it guy. I didn't know what I was doing half the time. I still don't.” VFX by Way of Accident It wasn’t long before optical houses and producers began calling on Okun when their films were in trouble. One fix led to another. His reputation grew as someone who could step into a crisis and calmly solve it — usually with a combination of ingenuity, humour, and brute-force trial and error. “I think Saul trained me to see puzzles. That’s what it comes down to — seeing what’s broken and putting it together in a way that works. Most of the time, it wasn’t about having the right answer. It was about trying 50 wrong ones.” This kind of lateral thinking came into its own on films like Stargate (1994), where Okun — working with Jeff Kleiser and Diana Walczak’s fledgling CG company — had to convince director Roland Emmerich that computer graphics were even worth attempting. “Roland didn’t believe in CG. So we built the shot, made the CG glider deliberately less detailed to match the miniature footage. Showed it to him. He said, ‘Exactly — that’s what I’m talking about. Miniatures are the way to go.’ And we said, ‘Nope. All CG.’ That’s when he finally came around.” (Fun fact, VFX supervisor Jeff Okun was paid homage by Brent Spiner in Independence Day in the role of Dr. Brackish Okun. There’s uh, a slight resemblance.) - Credit to Nofilmschool.com

Penguins, Moose, and the Invisible Effect Okun is quick to point out he wasn’t a Star Wars kid. In fact, he avoided the original film for weeks on principle — he doesn’t do queues. But he did get a behind-the-scenes tour of ILM’s original Van Nuys facility courtesy of Bass and George Lucas. There, he saw motion control rigs, Richard Edlund on his knees filming the crawl, Phil Tippett animating the chess game, and pyro tests in the parking lot. It was, he admits, a little magical — though it didn’t change the fact that his creative allegiance remained with illusion, not spectacle. “My favourite effects are the invisible ones. I started out as a magician. The goal is to make people believe there’s no trick. That’s where the real artistry is.” Still, that didn’t stop him from sneaking penguins and moose into the background of multiple films. He once gave a horse antlers in a Cameron Crowe movie. In Blood Diamond, he added a huge penguin family to a wide evacuation shot — no one noticed. “It’s like the gorilla basketball video. You just don’t see what you’re not looking for.” The Shark That Ate Sam Perhaps his most famous — or infamous — contribution to pop culture came on Deep Blue Sea. Samuel L. Jackson had just delivered a particularly rough eight-page monologue, and Okun, unimpressed with the script, asked Jackson what he wanted to do. “He just said, ‘Kill me.’ So I said, ‘If you make it to the front of the moon pool, I’ll kill you.’” The surprise shark attack that interrupts Jackson mid-speech is now legendary. It wasn’t in the script. “Renny Harlin didn’t know until the day,” Okun said. “Sam did take after take but always got to the kill spot early. We cut the rest. I shot the elements. It was a massacre. We even had baby sharks pull him apart for fun.” The Changing Landscape Much of our conversation revolved around the changing realities of visual effects — the rise of AI, the complications of LED walls, and the shifting expectations from directors and studios. “People think VFX is just hitting the ‘do it right’ button and then the ‘do it fast’ button,” he said. “There’s so little appreciation for how hard this stuff is, and we’ve done ourselves no favours by making it all invisible.” He sees today’s VFX artists as increasingly anonymous — a shift he’s spent much of his career trying to reverse, both through his own visibility and via his tenure at the Visual Effects Society. “We don’t sell our artistry. We sell our software. You know the names of the DPs, but no one can name last year’s VFX Oscar winners. That’s not sustainable.” The Invisible War Stories At the end of our chat, Okun expressed a desire to tell more of the “true” stories of VFX — the screw-ups, the late-night fixes, the shots that weren’t supposed to work. He wants more people to know that the chaos behind the curtain is often where the real creative breakthroughs happen. “It’s always fun. That’s the only reason I still do it. And when it’s collaborative, when it’s people bouncing ideas off each other, it’s magical. That’s when everyone forgets the pain and just remembers the movie.”

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Episode 123: Vickie Sampson – Dialogue, Detail, and the Art of Sound In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I speak with sound editor, dialogue and ADR supervisor, and filmmaker Vickie Sampson. Vickie’s career began in the early 1970s, and she’s since built up a mighty list of credits including Romancing the Stone, The River, Tank Girl, The Fifth Element, Ordinary People, and Return of the Jedi. She’s also the daughter of the trailblazing Kay Rose – the first woman to win an Oscar for sound editing. We discuss:

• Growing up surrounded by film and sound
• Her hands-on experiences on shows like The Big Valley and The Rifleman
• The vital but often misunderstood role of dialogue and ADR editing
• What makes a great production sound handover (and how so many indies get it wrong!)
• ‘Temp love’ and the challenges of directors getting attached to scratch tracks
• Working with actors like Keanu Reeves, Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver
• Her time in London supervising ADR for Return of the Jedi – including a story about the reels being stolen from her car
• Why clean dialogue is the bedrock of a good film
• Her continued work as a director and teacher

This one’s packed with stories, insights, and practical advice for anyone working in – or just obsessed with – film sound. 🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. 🔗 Mentioned in this episode:

• Skywalking Through Neverland Podcast – Episode 72 – More on Vickie’s Jedi reels story
• Simon Hayes' article on the sound of Wicked
• “A Letter from Your Sound Department” (available upon request or via Vickie’s site)

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In this conversation, I speak with Howard Berry about his film project 'Her Name Was Moviola', which explores the art of film editing through the lens of a a traditional editing setup. Howard shares the origins of the project, his connections with notable filmmakers like Walter Murch and Mike Leigh, who are both involved in the projet. And the challenges he faced in acquiring the necessary equipment for the film. 

The chat highlights the technical aspects of film editing and the collaborative nature of filmmaking. We look at the intricacies of documentary filmmaking, particularly focusing on the editing process and the relationship between directors and editors. Howard shares insights into his experience editing a film about editing, the challenges faced during production, and the importance of preserving cinematic stories. We also touch on the film's reception at various festivals and the future distribution plans.

• The project began as an oral history of Elstree Studios.
• Howard's connections in the film industry were crucial to the project's development.
• Walter Murch's involvement was pivotal in shaping the film's direction.
• The film aims to document the process of editing, not just the final product.
• Acquiring vintage equipment like the movieola was a significant challenge.
• Howard's persistence in networking led to valuable collaborations.
• Mike Leigh's willingness to share footage was a turning point for the project.
• The technical aspects of editing are often overlooked but are essential to the craft.
• The film serves as a tribute to the art of film editing.
• Howard's journey reflects the importance of community and support in filmmaking. Howard emphasizes the importance of preserving historical stories in film.
• The documentary was always intended to focus on the technical and psychological aspects of editing.
• Walter Murch's preference for a nuts-and-bolts approach shaped the film's direction.
• The relationship between a director and editor can be tense yet collaborative.
• Critiques from directors can enhance the editing process and lead to better outcomes.
• Editing a film about editing presents unique challenges and pressures.
• Trust between filmmakers is crucial for a successful project.
• The film has received positive feedback from audiences and critics alike.
• Festival screenings have provided valuable exposure and audience engagement.
• Future distribution plans aim to reach a wider audience through streaming services.

Filmumentaries Linktree

Her Name Was Moviola

The Elstree Project

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this conversation, Jim shares his journey into the film industry, detailing how a little film called Star Wars inspired him to pursue a career in filmmaking. He discusses his early experiences in the industry, the evolution of trailer editing, and the critical role of marketing in film success. Jim reflects on his time at Castle Rock Entertainment, the challenges of marketing films like The Shawshank Redemption, and the importance of intuition in making marketing decisions. In this conversation, the speakers delve into the intricacies of film marketing, exploring the challenges faced in promoting films like 'Shawshank Redemption' and the impact of initial reception on a film's legacy. We discuss the evolution of film reception over time, about iconic directors like Stanley Kubrick and franchises like Harry Potter. Highlighting the importance of creativity in marketing and the unique experiences that come with working on significant film projects.

Jim's book - Opening Weekend is available here!

Shawshank Redemption Trailer

All my links

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this conversation, Maryan discusses her journey into the film industry, detailing her entry point after film school, her experiences at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), and the challenges she faced as a woman in a male-dominated field. She shares insights into the creative environment at ILM, the collaborative spirit among teams, and the innovative techniques used in films like Return of the Jedi. Maryan reflects on her post-ILM career, the changing dynamics in the industry, and the importance of perseverance and creativity in filmmaking. In this conversation, Maryan reflects on her experiences in the film industry, particularly focusing on the creative processes behind visual effects, the impact of influential figures like George Lucas, and the transition from effects work to live action and music videos.

We discuss the challenges of working in different effects houses, the importance of collaboration, and the evolution of technology in filmmaking. The conversation also touches on personal career transitions, the balance between work and family life, and the shift towards education in the arts.

All my links

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this conversation, Gus Lopez shares his journey as a Star Wars collector, discussing the profound impact of Star Wars on film and culture, the evolution of collecting through the internet, and the importance of storytelling in the collecting community. He also delves into the ambitious plans for the Saga Museum, a collaborative effort among prominent collectors to create a public space for showcasing their collections and sharing their stories with fans. In this conversation, Gus Lopez discusses the ambitious plans for a physical Star Wars museum, focusing on fundraising, educational components, community engagement, and the importance of support from Lucasfilm. He shares insights into the collecting journey, the responsibility of preserving cultural artifacts, and the vision for a location that attracts both fans and tourists. The conversation concludes with ways fans can get involved in the project. Takeaways

• Gus Lopez was a Star Wars kid who began collecting early.
• The influence of Star Wars on film and culture is significant.
• Collecting became serious for Gus in the early 90s.
• Networking among collectors was crucial in the early days.
• The Star Wars Collectors Archive was a pioneering website.
• Collecting is seen as a social hobby by Gus.
• Every collectible has a unique story behind it.
• The Saga Museum project has been in the works for three and a half years.
• Collaboration among collectors enhances the museum experience.
• Legacy is important; sharing collections with the public is fulfilling.
• The museum aims to shareunique memorabilia with a wider audience.
• Fundraising is a primary focus, with a goal of $2 million.
• Educational components will span history, art, and science.
• Community support is crucial for the museum's success.
• Lucasfilm's endorsement is vital for credibility and support.
• Collecting requires a range of skills and experience.
• The museum will preserve cultural artifacts for public enjoyment.
• Choosing the right location is essential for attracting visitors.
• Fans can contribute through donations and merchandise purchases.
• The museum will create a space for both kids and adults to learn.

The Saga Museum

Tour of Gus's Collection

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This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this conversation, Jamie interviews director Paul King about his documentary 'Shine On', which explores the making of 'The Shining' and its filming locations at Elstree Studios. They discuss their personal experiences with the film, the meticulousness of Kubrick's work, and the emotional connections that fans have with the movie. Paul shares insights into the production process of his documentary, the challenges faced during filming and editing, and the support received from the Kubrick estate. The conversation highlights the nostalgia and significance of revisiting iconic films and locations.

All my links

Shine On Documentary

That Kubrick Season trailer from Film4

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this episode of the Filmumentary's podcast, host Jamie Benning speaks with Sierra Dahl, the long-term partner of the late Colin Cantwell, a visionary concept artist known for his work on iconic spacecraft in films like Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The conversation explores Colin's creative journey, his collaborations with legends like Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas, and Sierra's efforts to preserve his legacy through a revamped website and potential documentary. The discussion highlights Colin's unique approach to design, his contributions to NASA, and the impact of his work on popular culture.

• Colin Cantwell was a key figure in the creation of iconic spacecraft designs for Star Wars.
• Sierra Dahl shares her personal journey with Colin and his legacy.
• Colin's work with NASA included contributions to the moon landing broadcast.
• He was the first graduate of the animation major at UCLA.
• Colin's designs were influenced by his passion for quantum physics.
• He created the concept art for Star Wars before being officially hired.
• Colin's approach to design involved viewing ships as individual characters.
• His work on War Games showcased his programming skills and creativity.
• Sierra is dedicated to preserving Colin's legacy through a new website.
• The CSJ Foundation aims to inspire youth through STEAM education using Colin's work.

Remember, if you visit colincantwell.com you can use code "FILM15" at checkout to get 15% off any of the items in the store. 


All my links

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links

In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I sit down with cinema historian and walking tour guide, Nigel Smith. Nigel is the creator of Memory Palaces, a website project dedicated to exploring and preserving the stories of London’s cinemas—both those still standing and those long forgotten. Join me and Nigel as we discuss:

• Nigel’s early love of cinema, sparked by watching Superman II as a child.
• The evolution of his passion from movies to the buildings that housed them.
• The rich history of London’s cinema culture, including iconic locations like the West End’s movie palaces and quirky cinemas like the Prince Charles.
• Fascinating discoveries from Nigel’s research, such as a Camden cinema run by a medium who let spirits dictate the programming.
• The enduring importance of community in cinema-going, from bustling matinees of the past to modern film clubs like Tufnell Park Film Club.

Nigel also shares anecdotes from his popular walking tours, where participants bring their own memories to add to the tapestry of London’s cinematic past. Whether it’s the glamour of West End premieres or the humble beginnings of Victorian-era musicals, Nigel’s storytelling brings the history of cinema to life in a truly unique way.For more on Nigel’s work and how to join one of his walking tours, visit Memory Palaces.

Links and Recommendations:

• Learn about Nigel’s walking tours: Memory Palaces
• Visit the Cinema Museum in London: cinemamuseum.org.uk
• Explore the Kent Museum of the Moving Image: kentmomi.org

Listen in for a fascinating conversation about the intersections of cinema, architecture, and community.

All my links

This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

All my links