2012 SBIFF Panels IntroductionThere's no movie until there's money| 00:00 | (applause)
| | 00:05 | Roger: Good afternoon everybody!
| | 00:07 | Roger Durling, executive
director of the film festival.
| | 00:11 | Welcome! It's a fantastic panel, and
let me introduce it right away.
| | 00:19 | Graham King, producer, Hugo, nominated for the Oscar.
(applause)
| | 00:25 | Mike De Luca, nominated, Best Picture, Moneyball.
(applause)
| | 00:31 | Bill Pohlad, nominated for Best Picture, Tree of Life.
(applause)
| | 00:37 | Jim Burke, nominated for the Oscar for The Descendents.
(applause)
| | 00:41 | And Letty Aronson, nominated for Midnight in Paris.
(applause)
| | 00:47 | And please welcome our moderator for
many years, friend of the festival, Patrick
| | 00:54 | Goldstein, who is a columnist for the L.A. Times' Big Picture.
(applause)
| | 01:05 | Patrick Goldstein: Wow! Thank you guys very much for
coming out to see--we've got
| | 01:10 | obviously a fantastic panel.
| | 01:14 | We're going to talk a lot about money
and art today, and since in the film
| | 01:20 | business there's really no movie
until you have the money to pay for it,
| | 01:24 | I'm going to start with
a few business questions.
| | 01:29 | So Letty, you're right at my side.
| | 01:32 | I read something really interesting
recently about Midnight in Paris, that it
| | 01:36 | almost didn't get made.
| | 01:37 | Letty Aronson: Correct!
| | 01:39 | Patrick Goldstein: And that Woody had written the
script, shelved it for a while, and it was
| | 01:45 | because shooting in France was
expensive and you actually were waiting for
| | 01:49 | the French government to pass some new--
I don't know what, tax credit or--what happened?
| | 01:55 | Letty Aronson: Well, we were supposed to do this
film a few years ago and in fact it got to
| | 01:59 | a--pretty down the road, to a point
where I had already gone there and hired
| | 02:04 | some people. But when we budgeted the
whole thing out the way Woody wanted to
| | 02:09 | do it, it was more than we had to
spend, and we always have a finite amount of money.
| | 02:14 | We don't have a studio to go back to if
it goes over or if instead of 18, it's going
| | 02:20 | to be 22 or whatever.
| | 02:21 | So we did shelve it, and then in the
intervening years, France put in a tax
| | 02:31 | refund for working there, and the
difference that that made for us made it
| | 02:37 | possible two years later to
then be able to do the film.
| | 02:42 | Patrick Goldstein: And I feel like Woody's last
six or seven movies have largely been
| | 02:49 | Patrick Goldstein: financed by European--investors.
Letty Aronson: Correct!
| | 02:53 | Patrick Goldstein: Tell me, how did that come about?
| | 02:56 | I mean, in the sense did they
come to you or was that more of an
| | 02:58 | entrepreneurial idea on your part?
| | 03:01 | Letty Aronson: Well, Woody's films have always done
better in Europe than in this country,
| | 03:06 | traditionally. And this country has
always been a studio system, although there
| | 03:11 | are independent films, whereas in
Europe there is never a studio system; it's
| | 03:16 | always independent films. And they
very much admire the filmmaker. There is a
| | 03:23 | big thrust in that direction.
| | 03:26 | So that given that we do better there
and they're interested in the filmmaker,
| | 03:31 | it was easier to go there and try
to get money than in this country.
| | 03:38 | We don't work the way the studios work.
| | 03:41 | They wouldn't be comfortable
working the way we work and vice versa.
| | 03:45 | We don't give a script to read.
| | 03:47 | Woody doesn't write until the money is in place.
| | 03:50 | Letty Aronson: So, you have to get the money.
Patrick Goldstein: I wish I could do that.
| | 03:55 | (laughter)
| | 03:57 | Letty Aronson: So I have to get the money based on
nothing, not that Woody's nothing, but I
| | 04:02 | mean it's just based on Woody.
Jim Burke: That's producing. That is.
| | 04:07 | (applause)
| | 04:12 | Letty Aronson: There is no script and there is
nobody attached to it and there is no
| | 04:15 | anything and he doesn't write,
as I say, until there's money.
| | 04:18 | So they have to agree. Even when there
is a script, they don't get to read the
| | 04:23 | script. They don't get any input on the
cast. They don't come to dailies. They
| | 04:27 | don't see a rough cut.
| | 04:28 | You pay your money and you do get a
film and it's always on budget and it has
| | 04:35 | good actors, and Woody
has directed and written it,
| | 04:40 | but it's the only way that he can work,
or will work, and that doesn't work in
| | 04:44 | this country with the studios.
| | 04:45 | Patrick Goldstein: We have two producers here on the
panel who often invest their own money into
| | 04:51 | their films, so I'd like to go
get their perspective as well.
| | 04:56 | Graham, I know you went looking for a
studio partner for Hugo and you would
| | 05:03 | have--we knew it's going to be an
expensive undertaking but what happened
| | 05:08 | when you had Marty Scorsese doing a
great film about the history of the film
| | 05:15 | business, what happened when you
made the rounds, looking to see if you could find a partner?
| | 05:19 | Graham King: Right. I actually didn't do that because
Marty and I were going to make this movie
| | 05:24 | after Departed, after we did Departed
together at Warner Brothers, and the script
| | 05:30 | wasn't quite right and Warners
wasn't that into the movie at a time.
| | 05:38 | So Marty went up and did Shutter Island
and I did some things, and I actually had
| | 05:42 | about five or six filmmakers come to
me during that time saying we'd love to
| | 05:45 | getting on Hugo and do Hugo, but for
me I had to do it with Scorsese.
| | 05:49 | If it wasn't Scorsese, I don't
think I would have done it at all.
| | 05:53 | And then I changed my business
strategy during that time, and I left Warner
| | 05:56 | Brothers a did a deal with Sony where
it's not me but my investors put up the
| | 06:02 | money and Sony releases the movie, and
Hugo fell into that category. And so after
| | 06:08 | Marty had finished Shutter Island I
went back to him and I said, "Let's do this
| | 06:13 | movie together," and that's how it all started.
| | 06:14 | But it's a big undertaking. It was a huge movie.
| | 06:18 | We had no idea what we were getting into,
budget-wise, schedule-wise, with the 3D; it
| | 06:26 | was all new to everybody.
| | 06:27 | Marty has a team that are really some
of the best in the business, with Bob
| | 06:32 | Richardson and Rob Legato and Dante
Ferretti, and when the set designer doesn't
| | 06:38 | talk to the DP about this new
camera showing up and the camera was four
| | 06:42 | times bigger than what would he
imagine and the set is already built, you're
| | 06:45 | starting off in trouble.
| | 06:47 | So Marty shot this, kind of went out of window
| | 06:49 | on the first day's shooting because he saw all
these new toys to play with in 3D. And he
| | 06:55 | loves to do these tracking-camera shots
through the book shop, and it would take
| | 06:59 | literally four hours to set up a
shot because the angle he wanted, we had to
| | 07:04 | take half of the sets
down and then rebuild again. So that's how it started.
| | 07:09 | But it was, as far as financing goes,
when you go into a movie that big and that
| | 07:14 | ambitious, you're always going to face
hurdles. But regardless, when you come out
| | 07:19 | at the other end, to me anyway and to my
investors, it's not just about the dollar,
| | 07:24 | I think, that Scorsese made a
masterpiece on this movie I think --
| | 07:27 | (applause)
| | 07:32 | So I think it's about longevity and that that
revenue stream can come back now and it
| | 07:36 | can come back in twenty years time.
| | 07:38 | Patrick Goldstein: You started in the business in
international sales at Fox, and obviously you
| | 07:45 | know the international market
really well, and I'm curious.
| | 07:49 | So, you will sell off some
of the foreign territories?
| | 07:54 | How does that work in terms of your
strategic idea of how much of the movie you want to?--
| | 08:00 | Graham King: Right! Well it's all down, international
is all down to relationships, and I had guys in UK, France,
| | 08:05 | Italy that wanted to buy into Hugo at an
early stage, so at the screenplay stage.
| | 08:10 | So I did set off some territories,
those territories, and the rest then goes to
| | 08:15 | Paramount for distribution. And it's
always a tough decision to make whether you
| | 08:21 | presell a film to a certain
market or you wait and let the studio release it.
| | 08:26 | Sometimes you roll the
dice and sometimes you don't.
| | 08:29 | On this one, because we saw where it was
going budget-wise, that's when I decided
| | 08:34 | we better lay off some risk.
| | 08:38 | Patrick Goldstein: Bill, a Terrence Malick film
definitely doesn't fit the big-studio economic model.
| | 08:48 | Did you always know that you
would end up handling the financing?
| | 08:54 | Bill Pohlad: I suppose so. We didn't do it by
ourselves, of course; we did go out and sell
| | 09:00 | foreign territories and things like
that and had some good partners on it. But
| | 09:04 | generally yeah, River Road was doing it,
and again I kind of heard the story
| | 09:09 | from Terry, working with
him back ten or twelve years ago.
| | 09:12 | So it wasn't like some snap decision,
but I had a lot of time to think about it.
| | 09:16 | He talked about it, as I
said, yeah, about ten years ago.
| | 09:20 | He was still evolving it in his mind, so by
the time it came back around and he was
| | 09:26 | ready to do it, I was more prepared. I
knew how Terry worked, I knew how his scripts
| | 09:30 | worked, and I knew what his vision was.
| | 09:32 | Patrick Goldstein: Well, I was going to ask you
about that, because I know you told one
| | 09:35 | interviewer that when Terry first
pitched you the idea, you thought it was
| | 09:39 | crazy. And I'm kind of curious, how
does it go from, "This is crazy," to "I'll
| | 09:44 | produce the movie"?
| | 09:45 | Bill Pohlad: Well, crazy in a nice way.
I didn't mean crazy like--
| | 09:48 | (laughter)
| | 09:50 | No, I mean it was unusual. Hopefully
most of you've seen the movie and so you
| | 09:54 | can imagine what the pitch was, or what
his description was; it was out there.
| | 09:59 | It was like--at that time it was
half creation and half this small town in
| | 10:06 | Texas and the family growing up.
| | 10:08 | So it was an unusual--it's
like you're--let me get this right. So what happened there?
| | 10:13 | Patrick Goldstein: So Jim, The Descendents. Now, it had
Fox Searchlight behind it, your filmmaker,
| | 10:21 | Alexander Payne, had a relationship
there and made his last movie there.
| | 10:27 | Your economic challenge, I would think, is
you're making roughly a twenty-million-dollar
| | 10:33 | movie and you're shooting
it all on location in Hawaii.
| | 10:36 | I've spent a lot of time in Hawaii.
| | 10:39 | I know that gas costs more there, food
costs more there. Pretty much everything
| | 10:43 | except papayas costs more there.
| | 10:47 | So, how do you stay on budget?
| | 10:49 | What are the kind of things you did to
find--the ways you found to stretch
| | 10:53 | your budget as far as it could go in
a place that's notoriously expensive?
| | 10:57 | Jim Burke: Well, we worked with a lot
of local people, for two reasons.
| | 11:03 | One, the actors. We wanted to keep
the authenticity of the place alive and
| | 11:09 | present in the film, so we hired many,
many local people in the parts. And the
| | 11:15 | crew, which was a great crew and many of
them lived there, so it saved us money.
| | 11:19 | You're right, it's very--everything costs more.
| | 11:24 | So to make our movie, what we wanted to
do was to shoot for the most amount of
| | 11:30 | days for twenty million dollars. And then everybody,
including George, they all sacrificed a
| | 11:37 | little bit of their
compensation for the love of the film.
| | 11:41 | Patrick Goldstein: So how many days did you get--did you have--
Jim Burke: Fifty-two.
| | 11:44 | Patrick Goldstein: Fifty-two?
And lets--I'd love to hear some comparisons.
| | 11:50 | I think that might be interesting.
| | 11:51 | So by your standards, twenty
million dollars, fifty-two is a lot of days.
| | 11:55 | Jim Burke: It's a whole lot of days, yeah.
Patrick Goldstein: Right. So, Letty?
| | 11:58 | Letty Aronson: No, we always shoot for seven weeks
because that's all the money we have, and
| | 12:02 | it's usually seventeen, this was eighteen million.
| | 12:07 | Patrick Goldstein: Mike?
Mike De Luca: It's about fifty-two days, and I'm not saying a number.
| | 12:13 | Patrick Goldstein: Bill?
| | 12:14 | Bill Pohlad: Actually, I honestly don't remember
the number of days, but Terry was on all
| | 12:19 | things right on budget.
| | 12:20 | In fact, I think we finished like
a day early or something like that, so we were--
| | 12:25 | Patrick Goldstein: And Graham how is your memory?
| | 12:26 | Graham King: Brad Pitt said to me the other day.
(laughter)
| | 12:29 | I think we could have shot all these movies
| | 12:34 | and still be shooting our movie.
It was a long shoot, a long tedious shoot, but I'm just
| | 12:40 | saying it's the hardest I've ever
produced, but also I think the best one.
| | 12:43 | Patrick Goldstein: Letty, I was going to ask you,
because the challenge here of when you don't
| | 12:51 | have a lot of money.
| | 12:53 | So, how do you make it go as far
as possible and get what you want?
| | 12:59 | Letty Aronson: Well, first of all, after Woody
writes the script and wants to go ahead
| | 13:03 | with it, we budget it.
| | 13:05 | If it budgets out much too much, we
don't do it, and he writes something else.
| | 13:12 | If it budgets out a little bit too much,
we hope there will be savings, but our
| | 13:21 | situation is that anything over what
I've raised from the investors, if it's
| | 13:27 | important to Woody to have it
in the film, he pays for himself.
| | 13:32 | So that if we've got eighteen million dollars and
he needs three days of re-shoots that we
| | 13:39 | can't afford anymore or rain or
something special, for him, the project is more
| | 13:46 | important than anything else,
so he then will pay for it.
| | 13:49 | Mike De Luca: Woody Allen is better
at Moneyball than we were.
| | 13:51 | Like in terms of that doctrine,
he really is an example of it.
| | 13:56 | Patrick Goldstein: And how does that apply to--
has anyone had a similar experience?
| | 14:03 | I mean, Jim, did you always know you
were going to come in close to budget or did you--
| | 14:09 | Jim Burke: Yeah, we didn't have a--I'd
say as filmmakers we were kind of
| | 14:15 | conservationists. We have a general
feeling that a film kind of costs too much to
| | 14:20 | start with. And like Graham's movie,
Hugo, that's a big movie, and so I'm not
| | 14:26 | talking about that, or even Tree of Life,
but I think you can make a really good
| | 14:30 | movie and it doesn't have to cost that much.
| | 14:36 | So that's our sort of attitude when we
go into things, and we kind of question--
| | 14:40 | and then it's not just me. In this case,
it was Alexander, as a filmmaker, he would
| | 14:44 | always say, "Do we need all that?"
| | 14:47 | We shot a scene out in, off of Waikiki,
in a boat. We had to have like two barges
| | 14:54 | and all for a little canoe where people
throw ashes off the side. And he stopped
| | 15:00 | everybody and said, "Who doesn't need
to be here and what like else can you be
| | 15:04 | doing to help the movie?"
| | 15:06 | And we got a lot more accomplished that day.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| 3D kids and dogs| 00:00 | Patrick Goldstein: Okay, so I guess the question we'd
want to know from you is when you get,
| | 00:06 | let's say, into triple digits, you're
the producer of the film, what's going
| | 00:11 | on in your mind as you're saying I've
got a the world-class filmmaker here,
| | 00:17 | I've got this--I know this is
going to be a fantastic movie, but we're
| | 00:21 | still shooting?
| | 00:23 | What can a producer do at
that stage of the process?
| | 00:27 | Graham King: Leave the set, go somewhere else.
Mike De Luca: Take some antacid.
| | 00:32 | Graham King: Right, a lot of Ambien.
| | 00:36 | It really depends on the process.
| | 00:39 | This is my fourth collaboration with Marty,
| | 00:42 | so if I didn't know how he is by
now on set, then I really shouldn't be
| | 00:46 | in business with him.
| | 00:47 | But as I say, this was a very
difficult, complicated film to shoot with
| | 00:52 | the newest technology,
| | 00:54 | so it did take a lot longer than
I would've imagined to begin with.
| | 00:59 | But when you're in and you're in day seventy
or seventy-five, whatever, and you're seeing that
| | 01:04 | the work he is doing and sitting next
to him at a monitor every day, one also
| | 01:08 | can't help but be carried away with
the beauty of what you're making.
| | 01:12 | So then it's really a discussion
between you and the director, or a sort of director
| | 01:16 | telling you, "This is what
we're doing," and you have to agree.
| | 01:20 | Mike De Luca: Like Stockholm syndrome.
Graham King: Right, right.
| | 01:22 | Graham King: But it's Marty, and again, doing Gangs
of New York and The Aviator and The Departed,
| | 01:28 | these are all big movies with him.
| | 01:31 | And seeing the way he works, and then
seeing him on this, it was just night and
| | 01:35 | day, because for a man of his--in his
career right now, to take on a new genre,
| | 01:42 | to take on new technology, to work with
kids, dogs, I mean it was just amazing.
| | 01:47 | And then I just, my big thing is just--
we're not kidding anyone today on set, right
| | 01:52 | Marty? We're not going to slash anyone's throat, or say any F word
or the C word, and keep onto the genre of what we're making.
| | 01:59 | But it was very, very tough.
| | 02:02 | As I say, we built all the sets to
scout, so we were in the concourse of
| | 02:05 | the train stations.
| | 02:06 | We got 300 extras, all in 1930s outfit,
we got the actors, and then you look
| | 02:12 | over and you've got at least sixty, seventy
technicians all working on this brand new
| | 02:17 | way of shooting the 3D.
| | 02:19 | And so it was extremely
complicated, and it took time.
| | 02:23 | Kids can only work four hours
a day, including rehearsal time.
| | 02:25 | We found out a little bit
later than we should have.
| | 02:28 | The original script didn't have a
Doberman, so we added the dogs to kind of be
| | 02:37 | sidekick with Sacha, and as I said,
Sacha came up with ideas during the shoot
| | 02:40 | which Marty, I've, again seen before,
his collaboration with actors is like no
| | 02:45 | other director I've ever seen.
| | 02:46 | And some of the ideas are good and some
of which are not so good, but he likes to try them.
| | 02:52 | And Sacha's ideas were fantastic. As I
say, it added commerce to the movie and
| | 02:57 | more fun to the film.
| | 03:00 | Patrick Goldstein: Now I've heard so many stories over
the years about working with kids, and the
| | 03:06 | incredible limitations.
| | 03:07 | So you know going in, you're going to
have that limitation of four hours a day.
| | 03:13 | Graham King: Right.
Patrick Goldstein: So isn't that already sort of structured into the time?
| | 03:18 | Graham King: Well, it is, but what you don't
know is the performance you're going to
| | 03:21 | get out of them.
| | 03:22 | So that you don't know
till you're actually shooting.
| | 03:25 | And Marty is obviously, like most
filmmakers of his level, it's all about
| | 03:31 | the performance.
| | 03:33 | So if he has to do more takes to get
that performance, he is going to do it.
| | 03:38 | I'm not going to--you tell Marty, "Well,
the kids have got to go home now," he
| | 03:40 | is going to be, right, "Well,
we're going to continue tomorrow."
| | 03:41 | Patrick Goldstein: And Mike, with Bennett Miller, he
had come out of making--he'd made a
| | 03:50 | documentary, he'd made Capote, but
he hadn't made a movie quite on this--
| | 03:55 | Did he need any help and guidance in
terms of just figuring out how to deal with
| | 04:01 | the scope of things?
| | 04:02 | Mike De Luca: No, he actually hit the ground running.
| | 04:04 | He always had a very strong
vision of what the movie was to him.
| | 04:08 | And we constructed a production kind of
schedule that was the box he could play in,
| | 04:12 | to the extent that that he and Brad,
if they were feeling their way around the
| | 04:16 | scene in the morning and wanted
to make adjustments to the script,
| | 04:19 | we gave him the time to have Sorkin
come down or work with him and make changes
| | 04:23 | on the fly a little bit in
almost an improvisational way.
| | 04:26 | He was big on--it was very
important for he and Brad to calibrate that
| | 04:30 | performance in a way that Brad
and Bennett were satisfied with.
| | 04:35 | So as long as we gave him that space,
which we did, he was really efficient.
| | 04:41 | He really was.
| | 04:42 | It was a long post schedule because we
had tons and tons of baseball footage
| | 04:45 | and dialing up and dialing down how
much of that people really want to see, or
| | 04:49 | how much of it is effective and how
much of it is diminishing returns, that took a while.
| | 04:54 | But it was, I have to say,
watching he and Chris Tellefsen and some of the
| | 04:58 | editorial staff work on that cut, it was
wonderful for me, because I felt like it
| | 05:02 | was a textbook class in editing.
| | 05:04 | Patrick Goldstein: Moneyball is also the one movie
that's actually based on real life, a real character.
| | 05:13 | And you also, you--tell
us about Major League Baseball.
| | 05:17 | They had a lot of input.
| | 05:19 | Mike De Luca: They had approval,
like straight-up approval.
| | 05:21 | Patrick Goldstein: Script approval.
| | 05:23 | Mike De Luca: Script approval, and really de facto
final cut, because if they weren't happy
| | 05:25 | with it, we were contractually
obligated to make changes. If the script,
| | 05:30 | if the cut of the movie departed
from the script that they had approved,
| | 05:33 | we'd have to conform it.
| | 05:35 | And because they were speaking for
all the franchises and we needed all the
| | 05:39 | franchises' cooperation to show their
uniforms and to shoot in the stadiums,
| | 05:43 | they had to be onboard.
| | 05:45 | And we just made them best friends from
the beginning, in terms of showing them
| | 05:49 | stuff early, going above the contractual
approvals, really trying to get them to
| | 05:54 | be partners in the movie.
| | 05:55 | And they knew from the
beginning it would be good for baseball.
| | 05:58 | It wasn't the kind of movie that
would get any controversy or would be bad for the sport.
| | 06:03 | So they were really willing
collaborators and we got through it in kind of a
| | 06:06 | friendly atmosphere.
| | 06:07 | Patrick Goldstein: And when you did something that was
not strictly true to the actual events.
| | 06:15 | My baseball geek friends
noticed when Billy Beane is being--
| | 06:20 | Mike De Luca: Isn't it annoying, they pop out of
woodwork and tell you what you got wrong?
| | 06:23 | Patrick Goldstein: Hey! You noticed that?
Mike De Luca: Yeah.
| | 06:25 | Patrick Goldstein: You've got a little bit
of that on The Social Network, didn't you?
| | 06:29 | Mike De Luca: Yeah, a little bit of that on that, yeah.
| | 06:30 | Patrick Goldstein: So what did you do, like the Billy
Beane being wooed by John Henry, the
| | 06:36 | Boston Red Sox owner?
| | 06:38 | Mike De Luca: That was a blast. I got to speak with
John Henry, which was--I was conflicted
| | 06:43 | because I'm a Yankees fan, but I wanted it.
| | 06:44 | But John Henry is a great guy, so I
was siked to get him on the phone.
| | 06:47 | And the scene where Billy Beane and
John Henry were discussing Billy coming
| | 06:51 | over to the Red Sox was originally I
think in Boca Raton, and nobody wanted to
| | 06:56 | go to Boca Raton for that scene.
| | 06:57 | We wanted to be in the majesty of
Fenway and John Henry, we had to call
| | 07:00 | him for permission.
| | 07:01 | And he was like, "Yes, of course
you should be in Fenway. Fenway is a great stadium."
| | 07:04 | It was that level of cooperation
that made it really easy for us.
| | 07:08 | And there will be--I mean one of the
things, this is how nitty-gritty it got.
| | 07:12 | There is a tarp on the upper deck of
the Coliseum, the Oakland A's Coliseum,
| | 07:18 | that's been there since 2006, and
we had it in some of our shots.
| | 07:21 | And in 2002, it wasn't there.
| | 07:23 | So they asked us to like
digitally remove it in some things.
| | 07:26 | I mean it was really down to that level
of correction, so it wasn't a big deal.
| | 07:30 | Patrick Goldstein: Because I, when the film is
actually shooting, I have learned over the
| | 07:36 | years that that's one of the great
arts of producing, is you have a filmmaker
| | 07:44 | whose job is to have a vision, and
they're intensely focused on getting the
| | 07:49 | vision, and they're often perfectionists.
| | 07:54 | But at the same time, you as a
producer are having to deal with the art of the possible.
| | 07:58 | At some point, you want to move on.
| | 08:02 | You've got a budget to stick to, and I'd
love to hear everyone talk a little bit
| | 08:06 | about how you handle that balance.
| | 08:10 | I don't know, Letty, let me start with you.
| | 08:13 | From what I saw in the recent
documentary about Woody, you don't have any
| | 08:17 | trouble getting him to finish
shooting at the end of the day. He is--
| | 08:19 | Letty Aronson: No, no, definitely not.
| | 08:20 | Definitely not. He doesn't believe in very long days
because he feels the actors get tired.
| | 08:28 | We never do rehearsal.
| | 08:31 | And one of the things to keep the
cost down is traditionally every film is
| | 08:39 | favor-nationed, we pay very little.
| | 08:41 | So the actors who actually join
us really do want to work there.
| | 08:47 | And so we don't give out any perks.
They can't bring their secretaries and
| | 08:52 | cooks and trainers.
| | 08:54 | They could bring them, but
they have to pay for them.
| | 08:57 | We make deals with hotels and bring them in.
| | 09:00 | But in terms of wanting to move on, I
have found it saves money to have the
| | 09:08 | exact opposite attitude, so that if I
find that Woody is not really happy with
| | 09:14 | something, I find it better to say,
"Let's cut our losses, reshoot this," because
| | 09:20 | if not, we're then two weeks further
down and he is still thinking about two
| | 09:25 | weeks before when a particular take
wasn't good enough, and then to have to go
| | 09:29 | back will cost more money.
| | 09:32 | So for us, it's better for Woody to
just say, "You know what, if you're not
| | 09:38 | comfortable with it, let's just redo it now."
| | 09:42 | We don't work long days, but
that's figured into the schedule.
| | 09:45 | One of the big challenges with
Midnight in Paris was that 50% of it was night
| | 09:51 | shooting, and Woody almost never shoots
at night. And he thought we could do this
| | 09:56 | movie by finishing up by midnight.
| | 09:59 | And we just couldn't possibly do that.
| | 10:01 | So we had to adjust it so that we
showed him that we do all the night stuff first.
| | 10:10 | And we had to work late, but late
for us was 2-3 in the morning. That was
| | 10:14 | very late for us.
| | 10:16 | And he had to adjust to that, and that
was an adjustment that he had to make.
| | 10:20 | But otherwise, I feel my job as his
producer is to see that all the money goes
| | 10:27 | on the screen, that we can get as
much as we can possibly get for nothing,
| | 10:33 | pay as little for anything as we
possibly can, so that he can make the movie that
| | 10:38 | he actually wants to make.
| | 10:40 | Patrick Goldstein: Bill, with Terry, his image is of
having a very strong artistic vision,
| | 10:53 | but is he really more disciplined
on the set than we would assume?
| | 10:57 | Bill Pohlad: Yes, very much, and
I--this is the honest truth.
| | 11:02 | He really was responsible about the whole thing.
| | 11:05 | He has things he wants to
accomplish and all that,
| | 11:07 | but if you tell him, if you give him
the parameter, even on a day or whatever,
| | 11:12 | and it's a problem he'll go, hmm, and
then he'll think about it. He won't be
| | 11:16 | like he'll blow up and there will
be some controversy or something.
| | 11:20 | He is very thoughtful about it
and very responsible about it.
| | 11:24 | I would say the post was probably
slightly more difficult than production just
| | 11:29 | because he likes to have a lot
of time which was built in there.
| | 11:33 | Then he likes to have a little more
time because he always like to play with it.
| | 11:37 | Patrick Goldstein: And now, Jim, you were saying that
Alexander, I get the impression, does not
| | 11:43 | like a lot of fuss, so is
he very directed and focused?
| | 11:47 | Jim Burke: He is. He is, when he walks on the set
in the morning, he knows exactly what he
| | 11:53 | wants to do and then he does it.
| | 11:55 | So from that perspective, he is sort
of--he is really a delight to work with.
| | 12:00 | Where he gets that is because we plan
these movies out for a long, long, long
| | 12:06 | time before we start shooting, and
that's maybe one of the reasons why it takes
| | 12:10 | him a while between films because there's
a lot of preparation in getting in there
| | 12:15 | and dirt under our fingernails.
| | 12:18 | But I think the main question
you're asking is what does a producer do
| | 12:24 | when we're shooting?
| | 12:25 | And it's been my experience is it's
akin to a lifeguard or a fireman, and you're
| | 12:30 | waiting for something to happen and
prepared when it does, to pitch in, but also
| | 12:36 | to keep the bigger picture in mind.
| | 12:39 | What movie is it you're making, because
there is a lot of people doing different
| | 12:43 | things and sometimes they get absorbed
in their art direction or this or that,
| | 12:48 | and they lose sight of what's really
important in the bigger movie, and so it
| | 12:53 | helps sometimes to talk to them about that.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| A nose for good material| 00:00 | Patrick Goldstein: Mike, you made Moneyball at a
studio, at Sony, but it probably took longer
| | 00:08 | actually to get made than
almost any other film in--
| | 00:12 | Mike De Luca: Except Tree of Life. I mean I
feel bad. We took nine years for a much
| | 00:15 | less ambitious story.
| | 00:18 | We didn't have creation.
| | 00:21 | Patrick Goldstein: Now one of the many qualities of
a good producer is having a good nose
| | 00:27 | for material, and knowing it when you
see it, and you acquire the rights to
| | 00:33 | the Michael Lewis book.
| | 00:34 | Mike De Luca: Actually Rachael Horovitz, my
partner on the movie, was the originating
| | 00:38 | producer and brought the book to Sony
and set it up, and I joined it about a
| | 00:41 | year into its development history.
| | 00:43 | Patrick Goldstein: And because I know one of the
last films you did before that,
| | 00:50 | Social Network, you also were there
at the beginning with the material.
| | 00:57 | But it took years to get this movie
actually to getting greenlit, and I'm kind
| | 01:03 | of curious, if you could explain what
made you think it was worth putting all
| | 01:08 | that time and energy into a film that a
lot of people said, gee, that's a book
| | 01:12 | about the sabermetrics of baseball, and
how would that possibly translate into
| | 01:18 | a good dramatic film?
| | 01:20 | Mike De Luca: Well, I don't know if this sounds
narcissistic, but it's hard not to read
| | 01:23 | your own life into material sometimes,
because you find that what moves you is
| | 01:29 | something that you relate to.
| | 01:30 | So in this book, and even in kind of
our first draft, which ended up not being
| | 01:36 | the basis of the movie ultimately, this
story of this guy who is looking back in
| | 01:42 | his early 40s on his life and trying
to figure out if he had made the right
| | 01:45 | choices as a kid, and how it was
informing his decisions for his future and
| | 01:50 | for his own experience as a father, it was all
stuff I was relating to at the time
| | 01:55 | and I thought, there is something here
that transcends the sport. And I always
| | 01:59 | think sports movies, they are hard, but
they can be great metaphors for life and
| | 02:04 | the book seemed to have the DNA for
that if we could kind of extract it.
| | 02:07 | It just took a long time.
| | 02:09 | Patrick Goldstein: And I also, since you mentioned Brad
Pitt, and obviously Bill, he is in your
| | 02:15 | film as well, it's of great
value to have Brad Pitt involved.
| | 02:21 | The question is, often I read about
stars who become attached to material and
| | 02:28 | then nothing happens, nothing happens,
they move on, and they get more excited
| | 02:32 | about it, another piece of material or a
filmmaker gets involved they want to work with.
| | 02:36 | So for both of you, what
kept Brad Pitt involved?
| | 02:41 | Mike De Luca: Well for us, I think he recognized
in Billy Beane, the young Billy Beane,
| | 02:49 | who was put in a certain box and he was
pegged to be this superstar athlete and
| | 02:53 | just in the end didn't have the
psychology you need in the batter's box to deal
| | 02:58 | with a strike in a less temperamental way.
| | 03:02 | I'm sure Brad out of the gate felt like
he was put in a certain box in terms of
| | 03:05 | being a movie star and what the
studios would have liked him to have done, as
| | 03:08 | opposed to the choices, the
provocative choices that he'd like to make.
| | 03:12 | He founded entry point into the
material that really mattered to him, that was
| | 03:16 | emotionally moving to him, this idea of
second chances and not letting someone
| | 03:21 | else close the book on you, being
able to write your own book, as it was.
| | 03:25 | So it moved him emotionally, helped
us shape the script, and I think his
| | 03:31 | keeping on the eye on the prize got us
through our later development and into
| | 03:35 | the hands of Steve Zaillian and Aaron
Sorkin and Bennett Miller who were all
| | 03:39 | of a mind with Brad about the
kind of movie they wanted to make.
| | 03:42 | Patrick Goldstein: Bill, when did Brad
get involved with your film?
| | 03:46 | Bill Pohlad: Very early actually, because he and
Terry had been in discussions and known
| | 03:53 | each other for a while, and Terry is
one of those guys, as you can imagine, that
| | 03:56 | attracts people who want to work with
him, and that was certainly the case with Brad.
| | 04:02 | But Brad came on to Tree of Life very
early, way before there was ever any
| | 04:06 | thought of him being in it.
| | 04:08 | He and Dede were very instrumental
in keeping it going, and we all worked
| | 04:13 | together side by side as producers honestly.
| | 04:15 | Patrick Goldstein: But he was committed. He said when
you're ready, I will make a window in my schedule?
| | 04:22 | Bill Pohlad: No, it really did happen just the
opposite. He was there at the table as a
| | 04:26 | producer and we had, I think it's
fairly well known that Heath Ledger was going
| | 04:32 | to play his role at the time.
Heath ultimately decided not to do it.
| | 04:37 | And when we were searching around
for other people, it really was like,
| | 04:41 | whatever, the elephant in the room or
something, why didn't we think of this
| | 04:44 | before? It sounds silly right now, but
it really was, because Brad had been there
| | 04:47 | in another capacity for so long that we
just had not gone there, and then all of
| | 04:53 | a sudden it seemed obvious, seemed perfect.
| | 04:56 | Patrick Goldstein: And it's interesting because he is
an actual producer on both of your films,
| | 05:04 | and I think a lot of people
would say, okay, movie star,
| | 05:07 | a lot of them take producer credits.
| | 05:10 | So what did he actually do to
deserve that credit in your mind?
| | 05:14 | Mike De Luca: For us, he started producing,
kind of the minute he got serious about
| | 05:20 | attaching to the movie as an actor, he
really was in the room with Zaillian from
| | 05:25 | the beginning, getting that movie to a
place, at the script level at least, where
| | 05:30 | we can start talking about directors,
and then he helped us come up with our
| | 05:34 | first budget with Soderbergh that
made the movie kind of makeable for Sony,
| | 05:38 | and then stayed with it and held it
together, which is very producerial, as we
| | 05:43 | transitioned out of Soderbergh into
Bennett Miller, and really selected Bennett Miller.
| | 05:48 | Patrick Goldstein: And over to you.
| | 05:48 | Bill Pohlad: We didn't have the same kind of
drama in that regard, but Brad, again, was
| | 05:54 | there at the table for the whole time.
| | 05:56 | Again, he was operating as a producer
alongside Dede and Sarah and the rest of
| | 06:02 | us well before thinking about it as a
director. And so as soon as we were in
| | 06:06 | production he wasn't as much of a
producer. He was concentrating on what he was
| | 06:10 | doing. But throughout post, he was
there for scene cuts all along the way and
| | 06:15 | helping to give his
opinions on shaping the film.
| | 06:18 | Graham King: He was a unit photographer on a
movie for me this year as well. He was! He was!
| | 06:24 | Mike De Luca: That's so cool.
| | 06:25 | Graham King: I did a film which Angelina Jolie
directed, In the Land of Blood and Honey,
| | 06:28 | and I showed up to set and there's Brad
as a unit photographer, with three kids
| | 06:33 | round his neck, two more here.
It's a real family film but--
| | 06:36 | Mike De Luca: He could multitask.
Graham King: Yeah.
| | 06:37 | Patrick Goldstein: Wow!
| | Collapse this transcript |
| An ongoing relationship with the director| 00:00 | Patrick Goldstein: Mike has a really interesting background.
| | 00:03 | Mike used to run a studio.
| | 00:04 | He ran New Line Cinema, in what I
would say were its glory days.
| | 00:10 | And so I am kind of curious of your
perspective having watched a movie being
| | 00:15 | made when it was a Paul Thomas Anderson
movie or Farrelly Brothers movie, but now
| | 00:20 | how is it different
for you as a producer on set?
| | 00:23 | Mike De Luca: I was way too lenient with
directors when I was an executive.
| | 00:28 | I got criticized a lot about my old boss for--
with Paul, I went into the patron-of-the-
| | 00:34 | arts mode, which is anathema for
someone at a publicly traded studio. But as a
| | 00:42 | producer, I still feel like my job is
to--I mean as a producer of studio
| | 00:46 | movies, I mean when I do movies for
Columbia or a big studio, I do feel a
| | 00:51 | responsibility to the studio. I know
what those meetings are like, about how
| | 00:54 | they arrive at those budgets and what
home video looks like now and where--
| | 00:57 | what those--they call them
PNLs, what these PNLs look like.
| | 01:01 | So you walk this line to try to support
the vision of the filmmaker and get the
| | 01:06 | movie done efficiently but also with
some artistry and preserving why everybody
| | 01:12 | is doing it in first place, but also
protect the investment of the studio, which
| | 01:15 | just keeps them off your back anyway.
| | 01:18 | So I always, I try to just come with
the honest information to the director
| | 01:22 | these days, as a producer. Here is how
far we can go, and here is where you see
| | 01:27 | me. Here is how far you can go and
then you see them. Let's keep it me and
| | 01:32 | then we will all be happier, and you
just kind of come with relentless honesty about that.
| | 01:38 | I have been lucky as a producer--I
haven't worked with a lot of (bleep).
| | 01:40 | New Line, there were few that cured me
of being the patron of the arts. Tony K.
| | 01:47 | Patrick Goldstein: Tony K. And also the other thing,
that some people here have had kind
| | 01:56 | of repeat experiences.
| | 01:58 | So they have a--what they call in
Hollywood, a relationship with the
| | 02:02 | filmmaker, Graham.
| | 02:05 | Graham started working with
Scorsese on Gangs of New York, and produced the
| | 02:09 | Aviator, The Departed, and now Hugo.
| | 02:13 | But how does all that--does that shared
experience actually help, when there are
| | 02:20 | problems to be solved?
| | 02:21 | Graham King: No. No it does. Of course it does.
| | 02:25 | I mean you build a relationship, and
it's about producer and director knowing
| | 02:30 | each other's boundaries and having the
chemistry. And some directors, there are
| | 02:36 | producers, and they get
involved in all aspects of the set.
| | 02:39 | Marty is one of the directors who
doesn't. He comes out of his trailer and he
| | 02:43 | goes behind the monitor.
| | 02:45 | So producing is a lot more involved
with his films than it is with some other film-
| | 02:51 | makers, and so you are talking to the
head of each department every day. And
| | 02:55 | especially on Hugo, again, every day we
would meet and try and figure out how we
| | 02:59 | are going to get through the
day and what we are going to do.
| | 03:01 | So, but the relationship, I remember on
The Aviators, at the first couple of days of
| | 03:07 | shooting and I am sitting next to
Scorsese and he does a shot, and he says, "What
| | 03:10 | do you think kid? What do you think of the shot?"
| | 03:12 | I was like, yeah, right, I'm going to tell
Martin Scorsese about what we just shot.
| | 03:19 | But he actually really does love
collaboration and opinions and ideas, and so
| | 03:24 | now I know that. We talk all the time,
and I always say that this man singlehandedly
| | 03:30 | made my career and taught
me so much about filmmaking.
| | 03:35 | So he is so into detail in his life,
in his movies, and everything he does.
| | 03:41 | And again, as a producer, if you know the
director and know the DNA of what makes
| | 03:48 | him up, then you try and balance that.
| | 03:50 | I know that he loves to talk.
We all know he loves to talk, right?
| | 03:54 | So on this movie, we would have a lot of
directors and actors and people come to
| | 03:59 | the set to visit because
they had never seen anything.
| | 04:03 | So Peter Jackson would show up and it's
like him and Marty get together by the
| | 04:06 | monitor and everyone is waiting and
waiting and waiting and waiting, because
| | 04:11 | they are talking.
| | 04:12 | And then it went on like that.
| | 04:13 | So then I kind of quickly went, okay,
no more visitors to the set. I don't care
| | 04:18 | who it is. No one is going to visit.
They can visit him weekends or at night,
| | 04:22 | but they are not doing it on set.
| | 04:24 | Because with Scorsese, just sort of says,
"So how is it going," and there's forty-five minutes gone.
| | 04:27 | So it's like little tricks like that
that you learn by having a relationship
| | 04:33 | and knowing who it is.
| | 04:34 | Patrick Goldstein: Jim, you actually worked with
Alexander on Election, correct? So you must go
| | 04:41 | way back. Again how did that, did that pay off?
| | 04:46 | Jim Burke: It does. I mean, I have known him
for a long time, and we have a company
| | 04:51 | together, a production company, and we
share a same love for certain sort of film.
| | 04:57 | And yeah, so like Graham was saying, there is
shorthand, and you know when to support
| | 05:05 | him and when to leave him alone. And he
does ask you for your opinion, he asks
| | 05:11 | certain people for opinions, and he wants
to hear it. And at a certain point you feel
| | 05:16 | safe in giving it to him, and
regardless of his response.
| | 05:21 | Patrick Goldstein: And what about when you
have to deliver bad news?
| | 05:26 | Jim Burke: I do it and he know, and I just--he
knows my, what I do, and he knows that I
| | 05:34 | don't like giving him bad news, but
that I have to do it for all of our good.
| | 05:39 | And he, as they say, he takes it like a man.
| | 05:43 | But it doesn't happen that often, I
have to say. I mean, in terms of--the bad-
| | 05:49 | news stuff usually I think what you are
referring to is about money and things
| | 05:53 | like that. That kind of bad news
doesn't--because we don't ask for a lot
| | 05:58 | in today's climate, and so even though
I think twenty million bucks is lot of money
| | 06:05 | to make a money, the people at
studios think of that's a cheapy, and it is.
| | 06:13 | And so when we sort of do some
business at the box office, I have gotten
| | 06:18 | so many hugs and people wrestling my
hair up and things like that because it's profitable.
| | 06:28 | They love us.
| | 06:34 | Patrick Goldstein: Letty, I guess you have the longest
relationship here, of anyone on
| | 06:41 | this podium, with Woody. So being
brother and sister is that a plus?
| | 06:50 | Letty Aronson: Well it's a plus because I speak
to him at least twice every single day,
| | 06:57 | normally, even when we are not working.
| | 07:01 | So I am like part of the whole fabric of
the making of the movie. But I do think
| | 07:07 | the producing relationship, the more
you know the person gets better. Things
| | 07:12 | that worried me at the beginning, like
Jim was saying about all the planning,
| | 07:17 | ours doesn't have all that planning.
| | 07:19 | For example, Woody does not go to the
tech scouts. He does not pick the shot
| | 07:24 | beforehand. He shows up that morning--
we know where we are going to shoot
| | 07:28 | obviously--and then we will say, "Okay,
it will be this direction. We will do
| | 07:34 | this, and we will do--
| | 07:35 | Then there is few hours break to light it.
| | 07:38 | At the beginning that made me nervous
because it takes a long time to light and
| | 07:43 | if he comes in--we can't light
everything. We don't have the money for it.
| | 07:47 | So there is always a delay. But after
the first couple of films, I knew that it
| | 07:52 | would work. It's just the way he has
to work. He is not sure how he will feel
| | 07:57 | when he gets there that day.
Or he doesn't like to shoot in sun.
| | 08:02 | If there's sun, we have to work on the
shady side of the street or we have to put up
| | 08:07 | all the silks and that takes time. But I
know that so when it used to worry me, it
| | 08:13 | doesn't worry me anymore because he
knows there is a schedule and we have to
| | 08:17 | keep to it. And if he looks at the day's
work and he says, "I don't know if I am
| | 08:21 | going to get all of this today," that's
okay, because we have built in some other
| | 08:26 | time. Other things if we are in one
location for several days, we pick up time.
| | 08:32 | So after the first couple of films,
you know what to be nervous about and what not to.
| | 08:36 | Patrick Goldstein: I keep a little log of like
all the quirks and eccentricities of filmmakers.
| | 08:42 | I have never had, "does not like to work in sun."
That's a new one.
| | 08:46 | Letty Aronson: Oh, that's a big on, that's a big one.
| | 08:48 | Patrick Goldstein: But is there--the producer is
often cast as the heavy, because you are
| | 08:56 | ultimately the adult in the room, in
a wonderful fantasy world that is a movie set.
| | 09:03 | Is there an art to delivering difficult,
bad news, not just to the filmmaker but
| | 09:08 | to someone who is running one of the--
if you have someone that's not working
| | 09:16 | out in one of the departments, based on--
has your experience doing this over
| | 09:22 | and over, has that helped you
figure out the art of diplomacy?
| | 09:25 | Mike De Luca: I think people are always about
honesty, so I find when you do have to
| | 09:30 | deliver bad news, if you treat it like
ripping a bandage off, not brutal like,
| | 09:35 | "You suck, this sucks because of you, go
away," or "Can you speed up, you moron? You are
| | 09:40 | going too slow." It's never pejorative;
it's just kind of you come with the
| | 09:44 | honesty, and you just kind of deal,
jump in. I hate delivering bad news. I
| | 09:48 | like to be liked too much, so I find
that I have to jump right into the deep
| | 09:52 | end of the pool and come with it
quick, because it's easier that way for me.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Defining the producer credit| 00:00 | Patrick Goldstein: We mentioned earlier, when I asked
about Brad Pitt being a producer on two of
| | 00:05 | the films, and I think you all
made a good case of what he did.
| | 00:11 | One of the big issues in the film
business now, the Producers Guild is moving
| | 00:17 | ahead with plans to have a--
essentially I am going to oversimplify a little
| | 00:23 | bit--but they have binding credit
arbitration that would only allow people to be
| | 00:27 | given an official producers credit,
which they called the producers mark,
| | 00:32 | if they could really prove they did a
certain percentage of work on the film:
| | 00:37 | acquiring the script, running
the set, overseeing post-production and marketing.
| | 00:42 | They believed that there are too many
producers that are listed on credits and
| | 00:46 | it weakens--we can see actual
value of the producer's credit.
| | 00:52 | And I would like to hear from everyone
here who are working producers, do you
| | 00:58 | think that's a good idea?
| | 00:59 | Mike De Luca: I do because, I know working at a--
when I worked at a studio, two studios,
| | 01:08 | there was a, not a habit, but sometimes
the credit was given out to compensate
| | 01:14 | for something else.
| | 01:16 | It did get kind of cheapened as a
profession in a way because the credits were
| | 01:22 | afforded to people for reasons other
than producing the movie, or what they have
| | 01:27 | defined as producing the movie.
| | 01:28 | So I thought it was a
step in the right direction.
| | 01:31 | Patrick Goldstein: Graham, I noticed you shaking our head.
| | 01:35 | You want to take the opposite position.
| | 01:37 | Graham King: I think it's very tough.
| | 01:38 | I think every film has its own life, and
I think it's very hard to have a set of
| | 01:43 | rules across the board that come on every movie.
| | 01:48 | Producing a movie at a studio is
not independently producing a film.
| | 01:52 | I have been in a position where the
PGA took Brad Pitt and Brad Grey up for
| | 02:00 | the The Departed, and I completely
forget to thank him at the Oscars and it
| | 02:04 | became a lot of problems.
| | 02:04 | And these guys had a chance to win
an Oscar and I think they should have.
| | 02:08 | I think Brad Grey developed--I know he
developed The Departed. He put Marty in
| | 02:13 | it and Leo in the film.
| | 02:15 | And he had got an amazing offer to go on a
studio, and him and I spoke about it, and
| | 02:22 | he went to do that.
| | 02:23 | Well, I think he got most of the work
done, because with Scorsese you don't do much
| | 02:26 | more. He will take care of it.
| | 02:29 | The PGA, they threw him off the film,
and he had his probably his once a chance
| | 02:34 | in life to pick up an Academy Award.
So I just feel it's hard. I feel that--
| | 02:38 | Mike De Luca: Although producing is always
waiting at the end of their executive's
| | 02:41 | career, so he may reenter.
| | 02:42 | Graham King: He may, he may, but if you are in
that position, that's very tough to do.
| | 02:46 | He worked five years developing that script.
| | 02:49 | So I think it's--every film is
different, and I think if there are three
| | 02:52 | producers and if three producers agree
that each producer should be on the film,
| | 02:59 | then they shouldn't be
arbitrated. That's what I think.
| | 03:01 | I don't see the reason for them to
step in and say to me, who we
| | 03:06 | financed the film, we made the film,
we distributed the film, who should be a
| | 03:09 | Graham King: producer and who shouldn't.
Letty Aronson: Right.
| | 03:12 | Letty Aronson: For us, it becomes an issue because
in European countries the financers are
| | 03:18 | entitled to producer credit, and the
producer credit they hope will entitle
| | 03:23 | them to a nomination.
| | 03:24 | Here, for example, our--we have two
people who are listed as producers who are
| | 03:30 | the financiers, and they were
not permitted to be nominees.
| | 03:35 | For them in their home countries and
especially if we do a film, say, in this
| | 03:40 | case it was Barcelona or Paris or whatever, we
get accreditation as a European film or
| | 03:48 | as a Spanish film and in their country,
it's not understood that if they get
| | 03:53 | credit as producers, why can they
not be entitled to be nominated?
| | 03:57 | So it becomes a problem. I do agree
with Graham that if the people involved
| | 04:02 | agree, then it should be okay.
| | 04:05 | Patrick Goldstein: Jim or Bill?
| | 04:08 | Jim Burke: I am sort of more in line with Mike,
and I think that the act of producing
| | 04:12 | a film is, it's a real job. And some
people are with it from start to finish or
| | 04:18 | maybe close to the start and close
to the finish and other people are
| | 04:24 | afforded that credit in lieu of money
or because they help do one particular
| | 04:30 | and vital thing.
| | 04:31 | So maybe the solution is to, for those
people, another type of credit that isn't
| | 04:39 | described as producer but something else.
| | 04:41 | I don't know. But nowadays there seem
to be a lot of people that load up on
| | 04:50 | producing credits, and maybe the
solution is to just say we'll agree among
| | 04:56 | ourselves who actually did the work
and if we can't, then it gets arbitrated.
| | 05:03 | Patrick Goldstein: Bill?
| | 05:04 | Bill Pohlad: I am with Jim and Mike on this.
I believe in a slightly more strict
| | 05:10 | interpretation of it.
| | 05:11 | I mean it's tough, like on Tree of Life,
we had five producers. And in a different
| | 05:18 | sense, they could be all
considered as producers.
| | 05:20 | Brad, though, was the first one to say
as far as the PGA or the awards go, it
| | 05:25 | should be just the three of us:
| | 05:27 | Dede, Sarah, and I. But then when it
kind of expanded a little bit, it seemed
| | 05:33 | like it should be, he had made as much
contribution as anybody in the movie, even
| | 05:38 | though he wasn't
producing on a day-to-day basis.
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