Director/Producer Arthur Anderson

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:04):
God's my agent, you know.
I have an regular agent too.
I'm an attorney.
But uh my real agent's God.
So I look at myself as I'm beingdeployed out in the battlefield
of spiritual warfare that'sgoing on around us.
So, and you know, some projectscome to you, you just know
they're not right for you.
That's not where he wants you togo.

(00:25):
And then when he wants you to gosomeplace, I always ask him for
a sign.
Is this what I'm supposed to bedoing?
And he'll give me a sign.

James Duke (00:41):
You are listening to the Act One Podcast.
I'm your host, James Doobie.
Thanks for supporting ourpodcast.
Remember, you can subscribe toit, leave a good review, and
share it with your friends andmaybe even your enemies.
My guest today isdirector-producer Arthur.
Arthur is an accomplisheddirector, producer, and writer
in film and television.

(01:02):
He began his career working asan assistant director in
television on the new Lasty TVseries.
In 1996, he joined legendaryaction film director John Wu as
his first assistant director onthe classic action film Face
Off.
He's since gone on to AB, secondunit direct, produce, and even
write on other John Wu filmssuch as Mission Impossible 2,

(01:23):
Wind Talkers, The Hostage, andPaycheck.
Arthur has also worked withdirector JJ Abrams as
co-producer and second unitdirecting on Mission Impossible
3, as well as directing somesecond unit on the 2009 film
reboot of Star Trek.
More recently, Arthur hasdirected numerous episodes of
the hit TV series Pretty LittleLiars.

(01:43):
He's currently in pre-productionon John Wu's next film.
Arthur is one of the kindestpeople I know in this business,
and I think you will reallyenjoy our conversation.
Arthur, welcome to the Act Onepodcast.
It's great to see you.

SPEAKER_01 (01:58):
Hey James, it's good to see you again.
It's been a few years.

James Duke (02:02):
It's been a while.
I think we've both been busy.
Um, you've probably been alittle bit busier than me with
some of the a lot of theprojects you've been working on.
And that's really what I want tospend uh the bulk of our
conversation today is just umjust asking you all kinds of
questions about um all thedifferent things that you've
done.
Now, let's start off a littlebit with um you're a you're a

(02:23):
little bit of a of a um of aSwiss Swiss Army knife of
production, and um you you'vekind of done it all.
You know, your credits rangefrom uh AD work to producer to
to director.
And so I wonder if we could kindof just start there.
Um what got you into production?

(02:44):
Like what were was it somethingyou did you always want to make
film and television?
Is this something that came onlater in life?
What got you what got you intofilm and television?

SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
Well, I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina,
which is a long way fromHollywood, but it is on the same
latitude.
And oddly enough, at one pointthey were thinking about
creating the film industry overin Charleston.
They did quite a number of filmsthere back in the 30s.
Um, oddly enough, my dad was uha child at the time, and they
wanted to cast him in one of theparts there, but my grandmother

(03:14):
wouldn't let him get in thebusiness, so it took another
generation before my family wasable to get into Hollywood.
Um I was always interested.
I so I grew up in Charleston,South Carolina, went to the
first Baptist church there, wentto church school.
Um, I was always interested inentertaining people.
So when I went to college, Itook theater, but I realized

(03:35):
there was no route for me to gothrough there because there were
it wasn't a big theater town,wasn't a lot of opportunities.
So I went into finance and then,but my sideline was I did
stand-up comedy.
Um, a guy who roomed next to meworked at a radio station, and
he had a nightclub that came tohim and said, Hey, you know, uh,
we need some good comedy spots.
Everybody does all these spots,but they're not getting any

(03:57):
attention or traction.
So he approached me and says,Hey, would you be interested in
doing some comedy commercials?
I said, Sure.
So we would go into the radiostation when it went off air at
midnight, and we would do allthese comedy spots for the local
nightclubs, and then they wouldlet us in for free.
And they got to be such a bighit.
The local advertising agencysays, Hey, who's doing those
spots for you?

(04:18):
So they asked us to do comedyspots for them.
So we started our own productioncompany and we wrote, produced,
directed radio commercials, andthen were you still?

James Duke (04:30):
Did you still have your finance job at the time?

SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
Uh well, I was I was we were still in college, we
were sophomores in college.

James Duke (04:35):
Wow, so you were in college, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
So we were running this business, and I was taking
finance.
My uh partner was in journalism,so we were working a lot of long
hours, but we were learning thehard way up, and then one of our
ad agents says, Hey, you know,Volkswagen's coming out with
these new cars, they want us todo this whole new commercial
with them.
And we'd never done televisionbefore, so we call one of our

(05:00):
friends at the TV stations.
Hey, listen, the ad agency wantsus to do this commercial.
Uh, we've created some roughstoryboards of what we want to
do.
The uh, you know, we want tobring the car in the studio, and
we it's gonna be one long dollyshop from the front.
It was Nick's uh the new uhAudi.
And so we want to start at thefront of the car, we're gonna
dolly all the way around theback.
We want to intercut the stereo,the wheels, and but we've never

(05:23):
done this before, make us looklike we're good.
So we went to the control room,we set this whole thing up, do
the commercial, and uh thecommercial's done by the time
it's over because we're doinglive switching and everything,
and we're running the um uh thevoiceover underneath it, so it
was great.
So by the time it was over,commercial's done.
And this is like a Friday night,and it's about midnight when we
finish, and great.
The clients loved it.

(05:44):
Uh, they were there with the adagency.
This is great.
So they left, and then the stagemanager comes over and he hands
me the car keys.
He says, Here's the keys.
I said, Well, what's this for?
He says, Uh, the ad agency saidyou take care of the car.
I said, Oh, really?
And he says, And the unfortunatething is all the stage hands are
gone.
So the big steel plates we needto put down to put off the uh
stage uh are gone.

(06:05):
So you guys you're gonna have todeal with that and everything.
I said, Like my said, No, we'renot.
I said, Open the stage door.
I said, I said, Rick, we shotthe wrong commercial.
Watch this.
So I got in the car, backed itup on the stage, drove it off
the stage, like a three-footdrop.
Car goes off the ramp, hits theground, slide sideways.
I said, See, that's a commercialwe should have shot.

(06:27):
Um, so so we were, you know,listen, we were young and crazy
the whole sport, and we had noyou were you you were directing
action back back in college.

James Duke (06:36):
You were already doing action sequences before we
knew what we were doing.

SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
Uh, so here's the other crazy there was no film
equipment around then, right?
So they said, Hey, we'd like todo some more.
We we we got this big accountfor uh to do commercials for uh
the uh the state of SouthCarolina promoting the cities,
and one of them we wanted peopledriving cars.
There were no camera cars andtow rigs.
So I showed my dad some picturesout of a grip book with

(07:03):
reflectors, and I said, Hey, canyou build me a couple of these
that'll fit in the back of ourpickup truck?
I'll put the gate down, I'll geta tow rig from U-Haul.
We'll hook this car up, and thenI'll I'll let I'll let some of
the air out of the tires of thecar to make it more spongy.
We'll find a new paved road andwe'll get the light behind us so
they'll hit the reflectors.
She had to get several hundredfoot candles inside the car
because it's 16 millimeter film,right?

(07:24):
So we're driving in and I'm I'mtelling the people in the car.
We're shooting at the backdrive.
Look happy, they're about tomelt.
The lights just direct.
Wow, my makeup's melting.
Good.
Look happy about it.
So we had to invent a lot ofthings, you know.
And then we put generators,mobile generators in the back of

(07:44):
the pickup truck so we could runsome lights, and um so we we saw
all the Hollywood equipment,what they were using in
Hollywood, there's notavailable, so we had to create
our own.
So um, so our company was doingreally well, and then my my
senior year, my partner gotkilled in an auto accident right
before Christmas.
Yeah, I mean, it was it was itwas terrible, and um so after

(08:08):
that, I still had the company,and uh yeah, I had to make a
decision to make because it itwas too much work for me to do
my by myself, yeah.
So I sat in my studio one dayand I just prayed and I said,
Lord, listen, you know, I know Ihaven't been talking to you that
much, but this is the time Ineed some help and some
direction on where I'm gonna go.
And um, I'm it was like two dayslater, my mother called me and

(08:30):
said, Hey, there's a film cominguh to her hometown here.
And I know you've always wantedto get in the film, but you
know, uh I don't know if there'sanything you do, but I wrote
down the phone number, they wereadvertising for her assistant.
So I called a woman up, she wasin um Atlanta, and I told her
you know what I'd done.
She said, What you're way allover qualified.
I just need a castingassistance.
I said listen, I just want toget on the ground.
I'll do whatever you want.

(08:50):
So I had a giant casting call inCharleston, all these people
showed up, and we took picturesand and then the uh just back up
a little bit.
Prior to this, when I was goingthrough this decision-making
phase, like the weekend beforethat, I told my dad we had a
farm about 40 miles outside oftown, and we go out there and we
we work on the weekends to raiseyour own vegetables and stuff.

(09:12):
And I was plowing one day, and Iand uh this was before I met my
partner.
We started our company, just toback up a little backstory, and
I've been praying, and it youknow, when God talks to you,
it's not always an audiblevoice, just a feeling inside of
it.
So, this feeling came over,says, you know, you need to go
to Hollywood and make films.
And I said, That's the craziestthing I've ever heard.
Well, while you're while you'replowing while I'm plowing, I

(09:33):
stopped.
Wow, and the great thing aboutdeep plowing is all the birds in
the neighborhood know about it,so they come to like 30 birds
behind me, and they're notpaying attention to plant,
they're eating all the bugscoming up.

SPEAKER_02 (09:42):
And I stopped the tractor and I hear all the
birds.

SPEAKER_01 (09:47):
But I heard this, I stopped.
I said, That's the craziestthing I've I've thought about.
So I went to my dad, who's agreat man of faith.
I said, Hey, listen, this iskind of what I heard.
He says, Listen, you have nomoney to go to Hollywood, you
don't have any connections.
He said, Listen, if that's God'splan for you, He's gonna make it
work, you don't have to worryabout it.
I said, I forgot about so.
Meanwhile, we go throughcollege, we start doing this

(10:08):
commercial thing, this thingpops up for film.
And the first day of photographywas right out in front of the
church I went to for 12 years,went to went to school through.
So I had no money, I had nocontacts to get there, but God
brought Hollywood to my church.
I mean, and that wasn't thefirst day I'm holding extras in

(10:29):
the cafeteria where I spent mywhole school life going to.
Wow.
Um, and I worked with a coupleof great uh assistant directors
there.
And uh the second week offilming, they both got the flu
and they said, Who can run afilm set?
I raised my hand and said, Ihave a little experience, and so
uh that my second week in thebusiness, I was running a film
set.

(10:49):
Are you kidding me?
It was that's what happened, andit happened to be a comedy scene
where people were running inoutside a door, so it was a it
was a comedy sequence.
So I was uh it was right in myforte.

James Duke (10:59):
Do you remember what the film was?

SPEAKER_01 (11:01):
Yeah, it was um the double McGuffin, uh Joe Camp was
directing, and um and so theassistant director off of that,
Terry Donnelly, uh called me fora film.
He he got called to take over inNew York, which is the Brinks
job with uh Billy Friedkin.
And um uh and so went up there,took over he was taking over the

(11:24):
film.
We were prep we you it wasalready shooting, so we were
shooting.
It was a really tough film, too.

James Duke (11:30):
So so clearly, so clearly you obviously showed him
something that he thought thisguy what do you think that was
like looking like looking backnow with all the experience you
had, what do you think he saw inyou that he thought this guy,
I'm gonna take this guy with me.
I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna show himthe ropes.
What what is it?
Because you know, we got a lotof people here listening who who

(11:50):
want to get into the business.
What do you think when you werethat green um at the time, what
what do you think that what doyou think is some things that
they identified as as uhpotential?

SPEAKER_01 (12:02):
I always look for something that was going wrong
and tried to be there to fix it.
And then I would always stayclose to the assistant
directors, I would see what wasgoing on, I see what wasn't
working, and I'd always try tobe the gap filler.
Or if something was going wrong,I said, Can I go over and help
in that?
So I was always there, I wasalways available, and I was

(12:23):
really willing to learn and Iwanted to learn, and I knew
these guys were reallytop-notch.
And um, uh, so I was just asponge and I was absorbing
everything.
And I ended up um it we weretraveling all over the place.
So the second ad really had totake the the first AD was he was
first in in production managing,which is really hard when you're
moving around.
So what happened was the secondAD really took over the

(12:45):
production manager job.
I took over his job, and then Iwas setting the background call
sheets, all so my first picture,I was doing everything a normal
union uh second AD would do.
Wow.
So I got thrown right into thelion stand and you know, I just
stepped up and made myselfavailable and and try to be as
helpful as I can.
And that's really I mean, that's50% of it's showing up on time,

(13:10):
and then the other 50% is beingpresent in the moment, seeing
what's going on, and seeing howyou can contribute and how your
talents can help out for that,right?

James Duke (13:19):
I uh is it you know, hearing your story talking about
just in terms of just youringenuity, you know, as a
college student, you and yourfriend, and kind of what you
guys were doing and startingyour own company, and and then
hearing the way you describedthe way you kind of acted on
set.
It sounds like what you'redescribing is um obviously not

(13:40):
only what I mentioned before,like to have this kind of level
of ingenuity.
Um, but there's also it seemedlike there's this there's this
level of of uh what really workson a film set is the ability to
problem solve.
Like it's like it's it's it'sall about you know, and and if
you can anticipate, right?
Like if you can anticipate evenbetter.

(14:01):
But your your willingness to tryanything, do anything, just kind
of get your hands dirty, that'sa that that's that's a that's
pretty underrated, but reallythat's that's key, right?
When you said yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (14:16):
And a lot of times in my career, I'd get called
into shows that were a mess, anduh and I'd be a fireman, I would
come in and put the fire out,you know, because operationally
they had been set up incorrectlyor personalities clashed, there
was a big problem.
So I would go in and say, andthey would ask me, they'd fire

(14:37):
somebody off a show, they'dbring me in and say, What's the
problem?
And I'd say, Well, look how manyscenes are on this call sheet.
I mean, there's there's 13, 14scenes, there's not enough hours
in the day to get this done in12 hours, so you're overriding.
I said, uh uh, I would look atthe episode and I'd look at how
many days they had and how muchpage count.
And I said, You'll never get allthis page count done.

(14:58):
There's too many scenes, there'stoo many sets, and you know, uh,
you'll never get all this done.
So it's been set up uhimproperly.
So and here and here's how youfix it, and that's where knowing
how to write comes in becausewhen you go in, you know, how
can you tell a story with theleast amount of scenes, the

(15:19):
least amount of setups and getit done on schedule on a budget,
right?

James Duke (15:22):
Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 (15:23):
So uh, and it's the same thing on movies, it's the
same thing, you know.
I've directed short films, I'vedefect directed um uh streaming
videos, everything.
It you're given a budget box,and you can pretty much do
anything you want to as long asyou stay inside the budget box.
So it's knowing what tools youhave, what person that
personalities and personnel youhave, and what their level of

(15:46):
competence is.
And if one of those peopleyou're coming on the show and
they're not competent, you haveto figure out a way to work
around them, but still get thejob done uh without getting
aggrieved union-wise.

James Duke (15:58):
Um, and and Arthur, you know how many people I work
with, young emerging filmmakers,who want to complain and say,
Oh, well, if I only had ahundred thousand dollars, or if
I only had what you know,whatever amount of money I could
make what I want to make.
And I just every time I hearthat, I think, well, you're
probably not gonna make it inthis business because the whole
point is take what you have andbe excellent at it and just

(16:19):
execute at a high level, right?

SPEAKER_01 (16:21):
That's it.
That's it.
Well, I'll just say the otherthing being a man of faith has
played a big role in thisbecause back in my early career,
I wasn't close to God at all.
I mean, I knew him, I had arelationship, I'd pray, but you
know, uh, I just wasn't thatclose.
But things happen in your life,tragedies and things, and he
guides you into a place where hewants to have a conversation

(16:41):
with you, you know.
You can either choose to havethat conversation or not.
And uh, so I got thrown rightinto the deep end of the pool
doing a lot of big movies.
Uh uh, Billy Friedkin, PaulMazurski, uh Jim Bridges.
I work with really greatassistant directors, really
great producers, and I learnedfrom them, you know.
So I took on uh and some of thefilms I did were really bad, but

(17:05):
sometimes you learn more from aworking in a bad film you do in
a good film because you don'trealize how competent and great
people are who are good at theirjobs until somebody is not
competent and great, and all thewheels are coming off the wagon,
you know.

James Duke (17:18):
And when they and when you were doing this, were
you were uh functioning as asecond or a third or a UPM?
What were you fighting?

SPEAKER_01 (17:25):
I I started off as a production assistant, and what
my forte was was directing largebackground on movies, so got it,
did the Brinks job, WilliamPhil, Urban Cowboy just directed
all the background as a PA, andthat's how I came out to LA.
Was they had they had someadditional photography they
couldn't finish there, so I cameout to uh to LA on that.
Then I got my days in and got inuh the guild as a uh second

(17:47):
assistant director, workedthrough that, got my days in
there, uh became a first on TVshows, and then um in I think it
was 1993, uh did Beverly HillsCop three as my first feature
with uh John Landis, and thenin '96, I hooked up with John Wu
on um uh Face Off.
And I've been with him for thelast uh 26 years, and first

(18:10):
starting first starting out asassistant director, and then I
became uh uncredited writer onhis films because we would take
a film and we would break itapart because action was an
unseen actor in the film.
So we take the scripts likeMichelle.

James Duke (18:26):
I'm sorry, what is that?
What can you break that down forus?
Action is an unseen actor, isn'tit?

SPEAKER_01 (18:31):
An unseen actor, the uh one of the unseen characters
in the film, because you can useaction to do a couple of
different things, you can use itto advance the plot, right?
You can use the action to createa barrier for an actor so that
it stops them and they have toanalyze their personality or
what they're doing that's that'sthat they've tried working

(18:52):
before and now it's not working.
Uh, you can use it as a reversalwhere they have to change their
attitudes and actions, they haveto go through, you can use it to
help their character art, right?
So they start out one way andthey have uh they have an
Achilles heel, they have there'sa character flow in their
personality.
Maybe they don't trust people,they can't love, they're full of

(19:13):
anger.
And through the course of eventsof the movie, something has to
cause them to change, right?
An antagonist, a co-protagonistcauses them to change.
And what we would do during thefilms that we we would use the
action to propel a plot or toaffect the character, right?
To test him, to put him throughthe crucible.

(19:34):
Okay, everything you've donebefore didn't work.
What are you gonna do now?
Right.
And change that arc to changethe character by the end of the
film.
So um we would take the script,we would tear it apart.
Uh, if it was an action filmlike Mission Impossible 2, we
had car chases, we would takeout toy cars, we would put them
on a desk.
Okay, and John would always say,I want to do action that's never

(19:56):
been seen before.
So you'd rent every car movie,crash, fringe connection.
You know, every uh fast andfury, any anything that been out
there, you would look and seewhat had been done, and then
you'd try to come up withsomething that hadn't been done.
You sit down with the stuntcoordinator and the second unit
director, and we'd sit out thetable and say, Okay, we did
this.
There's okay, what does thismean to the character?
What would his character do?
How would he do this?
And then we'd figure that out.

(20:16):
Uh, we'd send out storyboardartists, we'd storyboard it,
then we go find the locations,and then uh and then sometimes
things would change when we'reout scouting.
I remember on Mission Impossible2.
There's the big fight at the endbetween Tom Cruise and Du Gray
Scott, right?
And John says, Oh, I want to dosomething with motorcycles,

(20:36):
never been done before.
He says, What I want to do istake these two motorcycles, I
want them to charge at eachother.
I mean, I I say like two nights.
Okay, he's he says, Yeah.
Then I want them to raise themotorcycles up, jump off the
motorcycles, hit midair, andthen go to the ground.
And I started laughing.
I said, Okay, that's that'sreally funny, John.
That's good.
So we let's go look over here atthis cliff.

(20:58):
We go to cliff and and BrianSmurs, the uh stun course says,
You know, I think he reallywants to do that.
I said, No, I again I said, Letme ask John.
You were kidding, right?
Motorcycles, guys hitting theguy.
He says, No, I said, John, thephysics of that is if they went
off the motorcycles, they hiteach other in the air, it would

(21:18):
kill them.
The g force would be too much,just too much, it would kill
each other.
The movie's over early.
He puts his hand on hisshoulders, says, Ah, silly boys,
just a movie, they'll buy it.
So we had to with stunts and anduh uh and the effects department
had to come up with this rigthat would these two motorcycles

(21:40):
looked like they were going eachother, they would rise up on
their back wheel, and so there'stwo cranes on either side with a
big wire going across, and thenthere was a cable that had to
lift the actors up off themotorcycles, and then there were
two wires attached to their backthat went to either side of the
crate with the cinder rig so itwould stop them and they would
literally be six inches apart.

(22:02):
Oh my god, so we're not gonna dothat with the actors.
I said, We're gonna do this withthe stunt doubles, and then and
then they fall off, and theywill pick it up.
The actors, and and of course,uh Dugray Scott was fine with
that.
But Tom says, No, I'm I'm ridingthis thing.

James Duke (22:14):
I said, Are you kidding me?
I thought says, throw me, throwme.

SPEAKER_01 (22:21):
I said, Tom, listen, we hire the best guys in the
world, we have the best cable,we have the best equipment.
But I said, The worst thingyou'll ever want to hear when
you come off that motorcycle isdoink.
He says, What's doink?
I said, That's when the cableunder the cinder rig pops, you
smash into the stunt double, andboth of you're dead.
And he went, I'm willing to takethe risk.
I said, Oh my gosh, um, so wecall a studio.

(22:44):
Well, there's what I'll do.
Oh, Tom wants to do it.
Well, okay, great.
So he so Tom did all that stuff.
He did, you know, wow, he did 98probably of all his own stunts.

James Duke (22:55):
That's got to be the most terrifying day of jealous,
right?

SPEAKER_01 (22:58):
Jealous this gray hair I've got.

James Duke (23:01):
That's from Tom Cruise doing his own stunts.

SPEAKER_01 (23:04):
I did Mission Impossible 2 and Mission
Impossible 3 when that's all thegray hair worrying about is
safety.
But listen, I I'll tell youwhat, he's he's in the best
shape of any actor I've everworked with.
I remember when I first met himon Mission Impossible 2.
I said he and he told me, youknow, I want to do a lot of my
own stunts.
I said, Well, what kind ofcondition are you in?
And so he was standing on thesidewalk, and I was standing in

(23:26):
the parking lot, and he jumpedoff the sidewalk and did a full
forward flip and landed in frontof me.
I said, Okay, you're in goodshape.
But I he's he's a hard worker.
I mean, I'll tell you one morequick story Mission Impossible
three.
We were in Shitong, uh, China.
It's a like a 1700-year-oldvillage in a restaurant there.

(23:49):
But the menu is 700 years old.
I said, How can you change it?
Oh, every couple of hundredyears we change it.
And so there was a sequencewhere Tom jumps out of the uh
the top of this building, heruns it and he's running full
tilt uh down by this canal.
And so uh the only way we coulddo this when uh um JJ hadn't had

(24:10):
an opportunity.
We had totally re JJ hadrewritten the third act of
Mission Impossible three.
And I had nothing to do withwriting on that, only on John's.
JJ and his guys uh uh had done agreat job on that.
But um Vic Armstrong, who's asecond unit director, and I had
to go pre-scout this stuffbecause JJ didn't have time, we
just didn't have time to dothat.
So we were looking at this, andI said, Wow, that's I said, Vic,

(24:33):
how does he come out of thiswindow and he runs down the
sidewalk full down?
I said, We're gonna need likeyou know, some kind of uh uh I
said the helicopters won't dothis, but we need something like
the space cam or something.
He says, Yeah, if we put twotowers, it's like an eight we
put two towers on the end ofthis and we rigged uh uh a cable
rig up, we can put the space camon it.

(24:53):
We can come up, bring them outthe window, follow down.
I said, Wow, that's really gonnabe expensive.
I said a hundred hundredthousand dollars.
At least it's yeah, he says,You're the producer, you have to
make the call.
So I had to call.
We got this great idea, and andthey they bought off on it, and
and it and it worked.
And Tom did it, and I'll neverforget because he had to set
this computer to run the cameraalong from, and he was running

(25:17):
at 16.9 miles per hour.
I mean, he's he is so fast, it'snot yeah, wow.
So that's part of that's part ofthe the problem solving and and
things you you you do, and andand you know, when the
director's not there and you'rehaving to make decisions for
him, and what I would do is Iget the video camera, I would
shoot everything where all thesequences would be, and then I
gave JJ a map of the DVD that hecould go through the sequence

(25:40):
the whole way through.
I and I've never done this withany uh picture other than a pile
out I'll tell you about later atthe line, but but the director
wasn't there, he had to show upon the day and shoot it.
And J D did an awesome job.
I mean, the sequence came outgreat, and we we finished a day
under schedule, which on apicture like that is just wow,
but he and it was his JJ's firstfeature film.

James Duke (26:01):
That was that was that was his first big studio
film, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 (26:03):
Yeah, and I'd work, I I'd work with a bunch of
people who'd work with him on aTV show, and uh and I knew he
could do it, and he did it.
And he's just I mean, you know,his career's just taking off
features from them, but he was agreat guy to work with.

James Duke (26:15):
Uh that's awesome.
Is that is that what is thatwhat is that what you love?
Like considering all the and Iwant to get into all the the
details of all the differentkinds of hats you've worn, but
but truth be told, is that yourfavorite part of movie making is
seeing a sequence where John Wusays to you, I want to throw two
people on motorcycles into eachother, or I need or I or I need

(26:37):
our star to to bust out of awindow and run down a canal.
Like, is it kind of coming upand designing those sequences,
working with the the stunt menand the uh you know, is it truth
be told, is that your favoritepart of movie making?

SPEAKER_01 (26:54):
Yeah, you know, uh it is uh the way a movie should
be made, it should be 90%pre-production, where you've
gone through, you've gonethrough the sequences, you've
gone through the story, you'vedone the storyboards, you
figured out how many days it'sgoing to take you to shoot this
sequence.
Um, you've sat down with theactors, you've gone through,
answer any of their questionsearly on.
And that's what I like, youknow.

(27:14):
You sit down, you do the tableread, and then you make them
stay after say, okay, listen, ifyou've got any problems with the
script, now's the time to bringthem out because once we start
shooting, there's no time to sitaround and be talking about it
because we've only got 165million dollars, we've got 100
days, and it's we've got to gohard.
Um, but then there's alwaysthings that come the great thing

(27:35):
about it is that 10%improvisation on the set is when
you get there and you realizethat that something you had
plot, planned, and schemed uhand rehearsed doesn't
necessarily work, and you haveto come up uh with a solution to
that.
That that is really the kind ofthe exciting process, or early
on when the director says I wantto crash two motorcycles into

(27:55):
each other, is you really haveto, you know, sometimes you're
so far on the outside of theenvelope, your feet are barely
touching the glue.
That that is the exciting part,and that's also the terrifying
part.
Um, but that's a great thingabout motion picture.
A script is a blueprint, it'slike the architectural design.
And you have to look at that'syour blueprint, that that's your

(28:16):
blank canvas as a director.
Then your uh your colors areyour actors, and your paint
brushes are your crew.
So, and the problem is yourcanvas is constantly moving, so
you're painting on a movingcanvas, but that's the exciting
part of it is that no days thesame, and that's the terrifying

(28:38):
part.
No two days are the same.
So, um sorry, I didn't mean tocut you off.
No, that's I just I've beenfortunate where uh I've worked
on probably every type of mediumin live performance, film, and
and television, a lot ofdifferent, a lot of different
capacities, and um and it givesyou a lot of joy at the end of

(29:00):
the day when you go home and youknow you've done something, and
particularly when you work on aa film that you know people are
gonna go sit two hours in thedark, and it has a chance of
maybe changing their lives, youknow.
You take them out of theircircumstances, their normal day
habits and stuff.
You have them suspend realityfor a little while, and you uh
you give them some encouragementand and some hope, you know.

James Duke (29:22):
Absolutely.
Um, let's talk a little nuts andbolts a little bit.
Uh the difference between um ADor running the set television
versus film.
What are what are some of thebig or some what are some of the
big differences?

SPEAKER_01 (29:38):
Um television in these days and times, usually
you're getting the script verylate on episodic television.
When I first started out in thebusiness, uh, you know, whether
it's six or twelve episodes oryou know, twenty four, most of
the episodes are alreadywritten.
Yeah, so you're in great shape.
You'd have a chance to sit downwith the director, go through

(30:01):
and the producers and go throughand analyze what you're doing,
and what's the most efficientway to tell a story?
Um in later years, you're you'relucky to get the script by the
first day of prep in a lot ofshows, and so you're going off
kind of an outline and you'relooking for locations, and then
you get the script, and youbreak it down, and the script is

(30:23):
too big to shoot.
So then part of my background,which has been great, having
been a writer and I've writtenon uh written on half hour uh
television back in the early uhearly 90s, is uh analyzing the
script and say, okay, how can wecondense this story uh so that
we can get enough of it done totell a story in an imaginative

(30:46):
and interesting way, but yet getit done within seven or or eight
days, whatever your yourschedule was.
And then you would sit down, youwould go through, make
recommend, talk to the director,bring the writer in.
Here's the changes we need tomake to do that.
And either they do it or or theydon't, and you say, Okay, well,
this is gonna be a 14-hour day,and the producers have to sign
off on that, right?
So, as a having written a lot,uh it was always helpful to me

(31:11):
to be able to sit down andconverse, be able to converse
with the writers, try to get andand you know, as a directing
television, it's the same thing.
I would always bring the writerof the episode in.
Usually it would it would takeme 18 hours to go through and
shot list an hour episode.
Really interesting.
Because I took my time, youknow, on the right side of the
page would be the the script,and on the left side would be my

(31:34):
piece of paper where I'd be shotlisting whatever.
And then I would sit down with awriter um before we went to the
floor, and I would flip throughwith them.
Okay, here's what I'm seeingvisually for this scene, what's
happening with the actors, and Iwould go through and and the
great thing was that oh no, myintent was this.
I said, Well, you didn't writethat, so let's fix that.

(31:55):
So we'd sit down and try to fixall that before we get to the
floor because a lot of times, ifyou get there, listen, the
actors are jammed up, they'reworking five days a week,
they're learning eight, ninepages of dialogue and multiple
scenes, they're shooting in therain and stuff.
So it's it's tough on them, too.
So the more the more you can getto find before you go into the
set, and you know, andeverybody's always happier if

(32:15):
they go there and they knowlisten, we're gonna work really
hard here for 10 hours or 12hours, but we're gonna get done
to maybe 10 because you'reorganized, you know what you're
doing.
Everybody's anxious and they'remotivated to work hard, right?
They're they're gonna give youtheir best.
And so, as an assistant directoron television episodes, it was
usually my job to bring myepisodes in way under budget

(32:35):
because we were getting near theend where they they needed more
money for the ending, so I knewhow to do all the tricks and I
could come in, you know, wayunder budget, make budget for
the people shooting the ending.
Um, so I had a unique uh uh setof skills that I was able to use
on that, and that got medirecting assignments like late

(32:56):
90s on the Lassie TV series asan assistant director.
They were going over budget, andum uh Bob Weatherwax says, Hey,
back in the old days in theblack and whites, we used to do
uh three-day episodes where itwas all about the dog.
I said, Well, let's sit down anddo that.
So we sat down and we we uh cameup with the story, pitched it.
They said, and and I said, Wecan do it in three days.

(33:16):
I said, No, kidding.

SPEAKER_02 (33:17):
So we did that.

SPEAKER_01 (33:18):
The camera directed that episode.
They said, Well, well, do youwould you want to do one of the
same?
I said, The same.
Okay, so we did that, we wroteanother one, and um uh and I
shot that one in in three days.
And what I did, there's so manyshots because the dog doesn't
speak, right?
So the dog has to see the so Itook three by five index cards
and I indexed every shot in thesequence so I so I could lay

(33:42):
them out, and then I could okay,dogs looking there, the other,
and then uh you would blockshoot a lot of that stuff.
Okay, have Lassie look to theright, have Lassie look to the
left, okay.
Have lassie backup, lookconcerned, you know.
So every place you would go, youwould do that.
So when you get in the editingroom, if you found yourself in
the gym, uh all right, there's ashot near Lassie looking right
to left.
Look, look at that.
Oh, oh, now you've seen theaction going.
Okay, so you always had ways toget around it, but busy three

(34:06):
days, like 58 setups a day.
I mean, and it's sing at asingle camera with no video
monitors, so so when you'redoing those, you were really
busy.
But that taught me a lot aboutaction films.
So later when I was working withJohn Woo and stuff, I do use the
same techniques for that.

James Duke (34:21):
Um, before I I want to I and I want to spend some
time talking about that inparticular, but before I do,
could you could you lay out forour audience um uh the the
different uh responsibilitiesthat say a first ad has versus a
second unit director?
Um what um who's doing what?

(34:44):
How's the communication flow andum and uh you know how how does
that work uh typically on onsome of these big budget films?

SPEAKER_01 (34:53):
Okay, uh a good example is face off.
It was a uh I don't know if youremember too much about the
movie, there's a giant boatchase at the end of the movie.

James Duke (35:03):
Oh, yeah, I remember that boat chase.
Come on, I'm I'm I'm a I'm aproduct of the 80s and 90s.
I remember that well.

SPEAKER_01 (35:09):
So the studio was really nervous about this big
sequence.
So John had storyboarded it out,he's really good about that.
So I took it, I broke out all ofstoryboards, and I said, uh, and
Barry Osborne was the produceron it, and Barry came up with
the idea.
He said, This big sequence.
Uh, suppose we shoot the boatchase in the beginning, second

(35:30):
unit.
I said, I think it's a greatidea because then he can cut a
buzzer reel out of it and helppromote the film.
So I broke all that out, brokeall the second unit action out,
broke all the first unit actionout, so that then um Billy
Burton was the second unitdirector.
He took he took that out andthen he shot that sequence.
And John was able to go outevery night and work with him on

(35:51):
that sequence.
We so we shot that all in prepbefore we started shooting, so
that then at the end of themovie, I took all the the
inserts we needed of the actorsof Nicolas Cage and and John
Travolta.
And at the end, at the end ofthe shooting, we spent three
days out in LA Harbor with twounits going on.

(36:11):
One would be with John Travoltadoing all his close-ups with
Nicolas Cage's stunt bubble, andon another unit would be Nicolas
Cage with John Travolta's stuntbubble, and then the last day
was doing all the sequenceswhere we needed them together,
right?
So we shot all those close-upsin three days, and then in

(36:31):
editorial, they cut all thattogether.
But meanwhile, before the filmstarted, they cut together that
whole sequence, and the studiowas super excited because it was
a great sequence.
They can now they can understanda vision of how the movie was
gonna go, and they had somethingthey could start prepping for
and sales with and stuff likethat.
Um, so normally what happened isthat the first AD will break
down uh the story take thescript, break the script down,

(36:53):
break the storyboards down.
He'll delineate, take thestoryboards and break them into
all right, here's the actionthat can be shot second unit.
So the second unit director isgonna be involved at that.
He's gonna work with the withthe first unit director, first
unit director.

James Duke (37:07):
How do you define how does the first AD define
what's second unit action?

SPEAKER_01 (37:11):
Second unit will be any action you can do that
doesn't involve the principalactors, okay.
Or if they do, it's on a veryminimal basis.
So the first unit director couldjump over at some point and do
that.
So any part of the sequence ofcar chases, you can do the cars
banging into each other, uhchasing each other around
curves, they blow up, cannonrolls happen, things like that.

(37:32):
Then you designate that assecond unit.
So the second unit directorwould work with the first unit,
the first unit director wouldtell him what he's envisioning
in that, right?
And then uh the first unit thenis all the action is all the
action activity that goes onwith the main cast, right?
So sometimes they overlap alittle bit, like on Mission

(37:54):
Impossible three, uh, the wholesequence where all the cars blow
up on the bridge.
I don't know if you rememberthat.
Uh, we shot that in the PacificCounty.

James Duke (38:04):
The helicopter with the helicopter shooting the
shooting the rockets and blowingthem all up.

SPEAKER_01 (38:07):
That's yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, so that whole sequence wasit was it was complex because I
was uh Vic Armstrong was thesecond unit director, and I was
the auxiliary second unitdirector.
So I went to the east coast anddirected all the second unit
with the cars coming onto thebridge and setting the whole
thing up in Norfolk, Virginia.

(38:28):
Vic was back at PacificPalisades on top of this
mountain that we had greenscreen that would pop up because
I was shooting the plates andeverything for that that would
pop up and he he did all thecars, wrecks, explosions, and
all that.
Wow, and JJ came in right behindhim with the actors and
overlapped then some of thataction with Tom running up,
shooting the helicopterexplosions going off and all

(38:50):
that.
So that worked really wellbecause we had three units going
on, but there were that was theonly way to get all that action
done because the movie had to bedone by Christmas because it had
a May release, right?
Wow, wow.
So uh it was really complicated.
We were shooting in threedifferent countries, we were in
Italy, Germany, China, um, allover the place.

(39:11):
But we had, I mean, we had agreat team of people, and we we
had the most fun, okay.
Great stunt guys, and it wasjust a blast doing it.

James Duke (39:17):
So when you um so for in let's take take, for
instance, that sequence or anysequence or the face-off
sequence.
Um, the first unit director, thedirect John Wu or JJ Abrams or
whoever, um, are they are theyare they they're they're talking
to the second unit director interms of what they need and what
they want, yes, but are theythen leaving it up to you, the

(39:38):
AD, and then even the secondyear to actually design the
shots?
Or are they actually tellingthem, no, uh are they are they
designing the shots also?

SPEAKER_01 (39:47):
Like, yeah, like okay, like in face off, it was
storyboards, and uh John wouldtalk to Billy and tell him how
he uh Billy's had worked withJohn before.
She's familiar with the shootingstyle, right?
Got it, yeah.
So as a second year director.
What you really have to do isunderstand your director's
shooting style and his method ofshooting because you want it to
be seamless when you go from theaction into the actors blending

(40:08):
into it.
So uh Billy had worked with hima lot.
Um, and then in MissionImpossible Three with Vic
Armstrong, um, JJ had pre-visedall his action scenes, which
really makes it great because hecould understand the narrative,
the entire story, and whathappened.
So JJ pre-vised those, and thenwhat I did um uh I was

(40:30):
co-producing that.
Uh I wasn't the AD on that, butwhat I would do is I would take
those storyboards because theywere we were kind of behind
because they rewritten the thirdact, they were shooting.
So I would take those pre-visesand we do freeze frames out of
those to make up a booklet, butyou always had to pre-vis, but
the booklet then would becomethe shots that were going to go
to um second unit, the shotsthat were going to go to first

(40:52):
unit, and then there was avisual effects component too.
A lot of plates that had to beshot in China.
So it was a visual effects unitthat was going over and shooting
all these plates because the topof the bank of China, we didn't
go there for that.
We shot those with the visualeffects window units and shot
those.
There was one shot that comesdown from the skylight, comes
down to the building, then itmerges into a shot that comes

(41:14):
right up to the top of thebuilding.
And the top of the building webuilt at universal, so those had
to be blended together.
So it was a complex film, alsobecause there was a lot of
visual effects and many unitsaround the world going on.
And I had this big calendar upon who was what were doing it,
when, how, and so it was it wasuh it was kind of like a Rubik's

(41:34):
Cube.

James Duke (41:35):
You you you just mentioned something there of
visual effects.
Now, obviously, you started inthe business when visual effects
were were were either never usedor hardly ever used to now
you're making films with JohnWoo and other people, and visual
effects are used all the time,right?
Yeah, and I'm just curious foryou, what has that transition
been like?
Has it been frustrating or hasit actually been life-giving?

(41:57):
Like, do you do you what what isthe process for you now living
in the world more of wherethere's more visual effects?
Do you feel like you have moretools at your disposal, or is it
yeah, I'm just curious aboutyour thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_01 (42:11):
Well, I prefer a combination of live action and
visual effects.
I I think that some of thevisual effects have gone so over
the top.
Listen, there's one thing aboutsuspending reality, and there's
the the other part about goingso far with it as you go, that
would never you could never dothat, you know what I mean?
And then some of these actionfilms, I mean they go so way

(42:33):
over the top.
You go, but hey, listen, that'sthe medium.
You you push it as far as it'llgo, but I'm a I'm a firm
believer in trying to combine uhphysical action and using the uh
visual effects to complementthat, you know.

James Duke (42:47):
The the the film that the film the film that
broke broke it, you know, brokeall that for me was uh Die
Another Day, the James Bondfilm.
Oh my gosh.
Which up until then, if Iremember correctly, I'm a big
James Bond fan.
Um you know, they the one of thethings that they took pride in
with the James Bond films wasthat they all they all almost

(43:09):
everything was all practical.

SPEAKER_02 (43:10):
Yes.

James Duke (43:11):
And if I remember correctly, I think it die
another day was the first timethat they did visual and it was
uh using and it and it the shotof him um surfing on the water
with the wind uh surf thing,whatever was so out of character
for a James Bond film.
It it wasn't even very welldone.

(43:32):
Like that was the first time youwere like, Okay, this isn't this
is broken.
This is this visual, this isthis is not serving the story.

SPEAKER_01 (43:39):
The problem is is when you go over the top like
that, you take the people out ofthe story and back into the
theater and they go, What?
Yes, you don't ever want to stepback in the theater and go, What
you want them after they leavethe movie to go, Wow, that was
awesome!

James Duke (43:53):
Yes, yes, yes.
Suddenly realize like I rememberwatching the first season of The
Mandalorian, and it dawning uponme afterwards that it was all it
was all a set, right?

SPEAKER_01 (44:05):
And that was all giant green screen set, yeah.

James Duke (44:08):
And I was like, Okay, that's impressive.
Like you got me on that one, youknow.

SPEAKER_01 (44:11):
Yeah, but see, it did it you you bought into it
because visually it lookedright, right?
It didn't take you out of thestory, you bought the
environment that the characterswere working in, right?

James Duke (44:21):
Yeah, by the way, have you shot anything with this
new technology?
Is it called Real Engine orwhatever?
Have you got anything with it?

SPEAKER_01 (44:26):
No, I haven't.

James Duke (44:27):
Yeah, it's a whole it's a whole other thing.
It's uh for production design,it's a whole other thing.
Um let's talk, let's I'd love totalk about your relationship
with John Wu.
I mean, he is a one, he's justhe's a legendary film director
and he's made some amazing filmsover the years.
And um, I believe you saidearlier that you first got

(44:48):
connected with him on FaceOff.
What uh and now you said you'vebeen working with him for you
know 20 something years.
And so um tell us a little bitabout that relationship.
You how did you guys connect andwhat is it about uh you guys'
relationship that you'vecontinued to work together?
Just just uh love to know alittle bit more about your
relationship with John Woo.

SPEAKER_01 (45:08):
Yeah, uh well, the producer on that was uh Barry
Osbourne, and the productionmanager was Marty Ewing.
And that the two of them thoughtI'd be a good fit for him uh for
this picture.
So I came in, I I interviewedwith him, I told him my
philosophy of filmmaking, how Ienjoyed his films, um,
particularly his you know, hisHong Kong films like bullet in
the head.
And I mean, it was some great,you know, established that kind

(45:30):
of action.
And um, we chatted for a littlewhile, and um, and after I left,
I said, I don't think I'm gonnaget this job.
Just you know, he didn't talk alot, and then Barry called me
up, says, Hey, you got the job.
I said, Wow, great.
Uh, so uh, you know, we startedworking on that film.
We talked about his methodology,how he storyboarded everything,

(45:54):
and I'll never forget that ourfirst day of shooting, we were
in the bedroom with um uh it wasJohn Travolta and Joan uh
Archer, I think.
And uh, and John we're and youknow, they had swapped
characters at this point, andJohn was making these big camera
moves going back and fortharound the bed and doing all

(46:17):
this.
And I said, I said, John, howyou know people have to have
dramatic to see this scene ifyou're gonna use the way you're
shooting all this.
He says, Oh, silly boy.
No, I'm only gonna use twoseconds here and you'll see.
That's a couple of days later,he invited me up in the editing
room and showed me.
I said, Oh, I get it.
He says, He says, Yeah, he says,the one thing that we're
remembering, my camera moves theaudience through the film.

(46:40):
I said, Okay, and then I got it,right?
And he's just a great guy.
I mean, listen, we've been allover the world together.
Uh, we were in Australia forlike 11 months on Mission
Impossible 2.
Um, uh, we were in Hawaii, wedid wind targets.
We had to recreate the invasionof Saipan, which is a freaking
monumental job.
I mean, just so everybody, weyou know, we had 100 and 300

(47:03):
crew members, there were 6540-foot trucks.
We had uh 500 Marines, 250Japanese there.
We had 300 bombs going off inthe first shot.
It was a two and a halfmile-long helicopter shot with
14 other cameras on the ground.
So I said, Well, we're nevergonna be able to sure where they
are.
So we had them build this modelthat was 30 feet long and 15
feet wide, and then had a littlestick with a helicopter on it,

(47:25):
and just so everybody would knowwhere everybody was when this
was going off.
And I could talk through thepositions and where the guys,
the bombs are going off.
Here's where the helicopter isgoing to be tracking.
Uh, if anything goes, the radiocommunications channels, the uh
uh camera crews on on theirchannel, everybody's on their
different channels.
We had a one channel we'd allcollide in together on, and I'll

(47:48):
never forget that that firstshot, it took us three weeks to
set it up.
Uh, we're ready to go.
I'm up on top of this gianthill.
There's monitors with with Johnand the people in the studio
there, and I got these big zeissuh naval binoculars, so I can
see the whole battlefield,right?
And it took two hours to do thesafety meetings.
I had three zones, I'd have totake this truck with big

(48:08):
speakers, just do the safetymeetings.
So finally we get up there, getready to go.
All right, had 40 effects guyssetting off bombs.
I said, All right, here we go,guys.
All right, get ready to roll thecameras, and all of a sudden I
see this shadow just come downand come across the valley.
And I said, Whoa! And I hearthese footsteps behind me, and I
can recognize Jeffrey Kimball bythe way he walks.
He's a DP.
He says, Arthur.

(48:29):
I said, Yes, Jeffrey says, Howlong would it take to reset this
battlefield?
I said, Well, probably take aweek, Jeffrey said, Well, you
can shoot this, but it won'tmake a pretty picture.
I go, Oh my, we're spending amillion dollars a day, right?
Oh my god.
So uh and I see the just alittle tip of the mountain, the
sun had hit, right?

(48:50):
It was like 2 p.m.
And so I go over the studioexecs and I said, We can't shoot
because the battlefield's dark,we won't be able to see
anything.
They said, Oh well, if that'sthe way it is, you have to.
So next morning we get up, weget everybody ready, we get out
the safety meetings, everythingwe're going, huh?
And I see the sun, it's headingtowards that same peak.
And it literally, we've got like15 minutes to get this shot up.

(49:10):
All right, roll the cameras, geteverything going.
Here we go, start thehelicopter.
We did it.
The shot went like two minuteslong, bombs going off.
Everybody's all at thehelicopters come along the top
of the ridge.
And the effects guys got alittle excited and they started
setting the bombs off too quick,and they were getting close to
the helicopter.
And the pilot calls me and says,They're getting too close to the

(49:31):
bombs.
I said, Nobody can hear me flyfaster.
So he just had to fly fasteraround the arc.
It was so noisy, there were somany bombs going off.
Once it started, it was youknow, we had a flag system we
could put at red flags, but it'sbeen way too late at that point.
So uh I said, use your owndiscretion, bail out, do
whatever it is, fly faster, justget out of there.
So we did it, and it and it cameoff great.
But that's you know, that's oneof those things that you you

(49:53):
can't anticipate until somethinglike that happens, and then you
have to scramble and and and youknow, uh, I thought it might be
my last day producing on theshow, you know.

James Duke (50:03):
That so when you when you and just real quick, uh
just to I don't want to focus onthis just for a second, get back
to John Woo.
That designing a sequence likethat, like when you read the
script and you read that in thescript.

SPEAKER_01 (50:19):
Uh has you reached the point where your mind
immediately can tell me days andand dollars in terms of how much
no, not not till I see whatJohn's vision of it is, because
then what we would do is when weonce we get that script, we'd
sit down with uh with uh BrianSmurs, who was a stunt
coordinator, and then he endedup being the second unit
director on that film, whichthen launched him.

(50:40):
He's a giant second, he does allthe giant films now.
Uh second unit direct, he's anexcellent uh second unit
director, and he's for he's uhdirectors on first unit uh uh
films also.
Um, we'd sit down with the toysoldiers, break out all the toy
soldiers, okay.
Here's the invasion.
So everything you used to do atfive years old, you're doing on
a tabletop, just getting paidbetter for it.

(51:01):
Um so we do this, and then we'dlook at camera angles, okay, and
we have the storyboard artists,okay.
From this angle, we'll see theguys come up here, and we would
develop the storyboards forthat, and then we would break
that down into what would be thesecond unit that Brian would do.
Uh, what we we we tried to doall that without a second unit,
but there were times that wefound out it was just too much
to do.
We had we'd send Brian off, he'dbe blowing up stuff early in the

(51:24):
day, we'd be off another area,and then both the first and
second unit would come togetherat the end of the day to do like
the assault on a machine gunnest and blowing stuff up with
the required, you know, 12cameras and stuff like that.
Uh, so it's a massive, it's amap, that's where all that
happens in prep, you know, andthat's where you need a lot of
prep time to get all that done.
Um, when you're doing bigstunts, you want to have time uh

(51:46):
before you start shooting toprep those to design them to
make sure that they work out.
And sometimes when you don'thave that time, then you get
together with Saturday on thestunt men with the stunt man and
you go through it, and then we'dshoot video of it, edit it
together to make sure that uhthe continuity of it worked.
So it's it's it's a massiveundertaking, but most of that
you want to try to have happenand prep because that's a cheap

(52:08):
money to compare when you've got150 people standing around
going, Wow, how are we gonna dothis?
That's not that's not that's notsomething you want to hear, and
it gives everybody a feeling ofconfidence too that everybody
knows what's going on, what'sexpected of all the departments,
because the worst thing you canbe have on a film set is
everybody not knowing what'sgoing on, you know.
Particularly when you're doingstuff like that, you bring

(52:29):
everybody together at thebeginning of the day, like we
sit around there.
Here's what's gonna happentoday.
We do this, this, this, this,this, so have this ready.
So the nobody wants you to bewaiting for them, you know.
And so if you give people anoperational plan and they have
confidence that you can executeit and you have confidence in
their abilities, it it all worksout much better than trying to
throw the Hail Mary.

(52:50):
Sometimes you have to throw theHail Mary because things happen,
you know, like with the sun andstuff.
But most of the times you wantto try to get all that done in
uh pre-production.

James Duke (52:59):
What do you uh all the years you've worked with
John Woo and now that you havedirected yourself, um what are
some things that you thinkyou've learned from him that you
think um sitting so closely nextto him and working with him,
what are some things that setshim apart as a as a director?
And what do you think are somethings maybe you've learned from

(53:20):
him?

SPEAKER_01 (53:21):
Well, the the I think the major thing is story.
Uh he has a great uh sense ofobligation to humanity to tell
an uplifting story.
Uh, he grew up in extremepoverty in the in the streets of
Hong Kong.
And um uh it was actually aChristian family that helped uh
give him money to be able to goto school and have books and

(53:43):
clothes and stuff.
So he has a great sense ofobligation to contribute.
Um, and he's he's great withpeople that way.
Um, you'll see in this film, healways he always the dove always
represents peace, right?
You always see the dove orpigeons and things like that.
So he's always trying to uhraise up uh the best qualities
in humanity and people helpingpeople and coming out with a

(54:06):
good resolution that no matterhow diverse our our beliefs,
cultures, our skin colors are,that we have the ability to rise
above that and help each other.
So it that goes outside hisfilmmaking, but that's the core
of his character, and yourcharacter is reflected in your

(54:27):
films.
On the filmmaking side of it, Ireally learned how to move the
camera, not just for the sake ofmoving the camera, like you'll
see a lot of people do inpictures, but to move the camera
to tell the story.
Because remember, when you'redirecting, you're directing the
audience's attention, right?
So the movement of that camera,what the camera sees, is gonna

(54:50):
focus where their attention isgonna go.
And John's a master at subtletyof adding music and camera
movement.
Uh, I don't know if you rememberthe scene inside um the loft of
the bad guy when it's being shotup and face off, and a little
kid's standing in the middle ofthe chaos with the headphones

(55:11):
on, listening to the song, andthe place is being blown up
around them, and you're justcircling around the kid.

James Duke (55:16):
Yep.

SPEAKER_01 (55:16):
So it's the dichotomy of the innocence of
the kid and hearing this songand the violence of what's
happening between good and evilaround him.
I mean, there's there's thingslike that that are just genius,
you know, that you you say, Wow,I never would have thought of
that.
That's that's prettyinteresting.
But here's here's innocence injeopardy as chaos and bullets

(55:38):
and people are dying all aroundhim.
Um, so those are the things Ilearned.
Number one was the hischaracter, his his love of
humanity, and always trying touplift it.
And number two, his filmtechnique on his interesting way
of telling stories to uh bringmore depth, more and more

(55:59):
emotional connectivity to theaudience, you know, because
that's what you what you alwaysstrive to do is if you can make
an emotional connectivity withyour audience, really get them
to care about the story uh andinvolve them with with the music
and the visuals.
I mean, you can really changetheir minds about things.

James Duke (56:17):
When you are uh on set, um, let's say as a first
AD, um uh who's your bestfriend?
Who's your like when you whenyou when you're on set and you
know you're in that mode whereyou you know, kind of like what
you were talking about, whereyou can't really be standing
around.
Like you've got to um when firesstart popping up, um who who are

(56:43):
you looking to?
Um because I want our I want myaudience to to know, like as you
know, as they get intoproduction, like um, how do they
get the attention of ADs likeyourself?
Like how did you how you got theattention of so who who are you
looking for?
What are you looking for um forthe the crew around you and and
and and and how how they shouldbe operating on set to make a to

(57:06):
make an impact?

SPEAKER_01 (57:08):
Right.
Well there's a strong trianglein filmmaking, and that's
between the first ad, thedirector, and the DP, right?
So you're when you're in a toughsituation, you're trying to
figure out how to shoot your wayout of something, um having a
good relationship with thedirector photography is always

(57:30):
good because you know they'vegot so much experience, they
know how to do things.
Listen, like in television, thebeginning of the day you start
out shooting a Picasso, and bythe end of the day, it's Aaron
Brothers Heart Mart, you know.
So yeah, how you know you startoff doing all these great shots
at the end of the day, you'vegot two scene, you get two
scenes to do, and you've got anhour.

(57:51):
How do you do it?
Okay, well, throw throw a bouncecard on the floor, put a light
on it, and let's get the steadycam out and do a one or make it
so if you can't make it lookright, make it look weird, make
it look like you did it onpurpose, right?
So so with John Woo with uh youknow with uh with uh Jeffrey
Kimball and stuff, I'd always goto him, I'd say, Okay, here's a
situation.

(58:13):
Uh we're now we're shooting inAnnal Valley.
We don't have enough daylight tocomplete these sequences.
I need to be able to shoot nightfor day in this valley.
And he goes, Night for day, areyou out of your mind?
I said, You have to make it looklike daytime here, so we can get
another four hours of shootinghere.
And he he'd call over Danny,Danny, his gaver, get over here.

(58:36):
I need a construction crane, Ineed a 60 by 60, I need to get
every 18k you can out here rightaway.
And sure enough, he put thiscrane up, this huge 60 by 60.
He bounced lights up, and youcould not tell a difference that
it wasn't daytime out there.
Wow, so that that's who you youdepend on, and you develop that
relationship early in prep whenyou're starting to go through

(58:57):
the script because you want togo through from page one, so
everybody's on the same page.
How are we going to do this?
You want to if you're not gonnastoryboard, you're gonna shot
list it, right?
So um, I uh uh when I was doingPretty Little Liars, uh I
directed a number of episodes,and then Warner Horizon had a
great hang on, it was somethingweird sounding.
Uh Warner Horizon had a greatprogram.

(59:19):
It was to train um diversitycandidates how to direct, right?
Um, so they had a course wherethey would go through and they
would go through a number ofweeks uh on stage.
Um, and a director would takethem through all a process of
how you direct, how you breakthe script down.
All right, when you get on theset, how do you how do you shoot
these things?

(59:40):
And then I did I took three ofthose candidates and uh they
hired me as a director to takethem through prep, shooting, and
post, right?
So I would make them sit downwith a script.
And the good thing was they theyhad uh gone through Bethany
Rooney's course, so they knewhow to break the script down,
they would go through.

(01:00:00):
And I would say, okay, we wouldgo through the sets and every
shot that we're going to do.
And I say, okay, so it lookslike you might have too many
shots.
So if we get down, it's 4 p.m.
and you've got two hours left.
What can you do for this?
And they would say, Oh, I don'tknow how to do that.
It's okay.
Well, look at this.
It's a steady cam walk and talkwith a two shot, and then you
change the lens on either side,and it's going to be good.
Or you shoot through somethingand you see them walking up and

(01:00:22):
they stop, stop at a positionwhere you can just shoot this,
you can punch in closer and haveone reverse.
Try to keep everything on oneaxis.
So would take them through thatprocess, and they uh and they
were they had such good trainingfrom Bethany Rooney that when
they by the time they got to theset and they actually started
shooting, they got it, you know.

(01:00:42):
And that's the way newdirectors, all new directors
should be trained.
So they go through a processwith somebody who's been through
it so that they can achievesuccess rather than just taking
somebody throwing them intoQueensart where they've got 12
hours to get you know 32 setupsdone and action sequence, and
you know, somebody has to go ina tank at the end of the day,

(01:01:03):
and they're just sitting there,and it's up to the DP in the
first AD to kind of pull themthrough it.
You know, that's not the way totrain.
So Warner Horizon did a greatjob, came up with a great
program, and the people who comeout of it, you know, uh uh a lot
of them have gotten jobs onregular TV shows.
So um uh in a in television, thesame thing.

(01:01:23):
Your DP's your your best friendbecause he knows he knows the
the ball game.
You tell him he knows whenyou're behind, and he'll come up
with suggestions and help youwith the director.

James Duke (01:01:34):
That's that's really insightful.
The um when you um oh when youare looking at um projects to be
a part of, um what's a part ofyour decision making process?
Like obviously, I know if youprobably have some sort of

(01:01:55):
relationship with a director,but but are there other aspects
that go into the decision makingprocess um that would be good
for a young aspiring filmmakerto know?

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:06):
Well, I'm a man of faith, so I look at every
project from the standpoint ofhow's this going to advance the
kingdom?
How how is this gonna helphumanity?
Um, and if it's a really darkpicture that there's no
redeeming value in it at the endof it, and you just feel, I
mean, about three years ago, Iremember looking at the
screeners that were coming outfrom movies, and I just said, Is

(01:02:29):
this really the best that we cando?
I mean, they were all justdreadful, downer, and no
redeeming value to them at all.
And so when I look at a project,I look at it from the standpoint
is there some contribution thismovie is gonna help to elevate
people or to tear them down?
So if it if it doesn't elevatepeople, I tend not to take the

(01:02:50):
project.
Um, so that's my my first, and Ialways pray about projects too.
You know, I'll I'll uh I'll reada script and um I'll pray about
it because uh God's my agent,you know, I haven't ever regular
agent too.
An attorney, but uh my realagent's God.

(01:03:11):
So I look at myself as I'm beingdeployed out in the battlefield
of spiritual warfare that'sgoing on around us.
So, and you know, some projectscome to you, you just know
they're not right for you.
That's not where he wants you togo.
And then when he wants you to gosomeplace, I always ask him for
a sign.
Is this what I'm supposed to bedoing?
And he'll give me a sign.
And sometimes I'll be on aproject and things are not gonna

(01:03:35):
go right, and you know there's athere's a potential for things
to really go wrong, and uh and Ibailed out of projects too,
because they were just thepeople involved weren't
honorable, and that's wherepeople get hurt, you know, and
so I won't be a part of that,and so I would bail up, but so I
have my spiritual meter that Iput up against projects like
that.
Um, because here here's the thedeal about spirituality and and

(01:03:59):
filmmaking is this is reallyimportant for people who are
just getting into the business.
If you're getting in thisbusiness for fame and fortune,
uh go learn how to trade stocksbecause you've got a much better
uh possibility of thathappening.
I know because I trade, I usedto trade a lot, but you get a
better chance of making moneyand becoming maybe not famous,

(01:04:20):
but maybe being more successful.
Um, because Hollywood is a meatgrinder.
The people who get the onepercent to the top have been
through untold horrors to getthere, you know.
Um, and it's tough, and it'stough to stay at the top too.
And sometimes your brightshining star is only good for a
couple of years, and then youburn out, and you know, and you

(01:04:40):
can't get arrested.
So um, if you're a follower ofChrist, you're a man or woman of
faith, you need to find outwhat's your motivation for
getting in the business.
Um, because listen, if you're afollower of Christ, you you know
what the purpose of life is,your mission is to save other
people, you know.
Right now we're on the Titanic.
We've I feel like we've hit theiceberg, but the band's still

(01:05:02):
playing it.
But oh, it's not so bad.
Yeah, our our job as followersof Christ is to help people get
in a lifeboat, get in thelifeboat, the ship's sinking,
and that's our job, right?
It doesn't matter what you do.
If you're making films, you'reworking in Wall Street.
I I don't care if you're digginga ditch, you know, at the end of
the day, you know, you'reworking on a film set with 300
people, they're going throughdivorces, deaths, uh you know,

(01:05:23):
cancer, horrendous things.
So, uh, you know, as a man orwoman of faith, it's your job to
come alongside them.
I can't tell you the number ofpeople I've you know I've had
they've had happen to that.
And I said, listen, you know,we're not curing cancer.
Here we're making a film.
If you need to go home and takecare of something, we'll cover
you, we'll get somebody in, gotake care of it.
If I could be of any help to youspiritually for what you're

(01:05:46):
going through, listen, I'm therefor you.
I'm not, I don't preach, I'm notan evangelist, but you know, I
know some techniques that havehave worked for me over the
years and have helped otherpeople.
And um, so you're they're yourfamily, so you come alongside
them and you you help them out.
Um, so you have to know, firstof all, what's your motivation
to get into the business?
You know, pray about what doesGod want you to do in the

(01:06:06):
business?
Because what He may want you todo in the business may be not
what He has in mind for you inthe business, so be open to
that, right?
Um, and number three, when youdo get into it, always be
teachable, always learnsomething.
I mean, listen, I've rewrittenthree tenth poll movies, written
episodic television, but I Itell you what, every time I sit

(01:06:28):
in front of a blank screen towrite a script, I feel like I
know nothing.
I don't know what happens, Icall it cinematic amnesia or
something.
So I I sit down and listen, Iknow all the techniques for
outline, plot, subplot,character definition.
What's the main question?
What's the main conflict?
What's the dilemma?
Where's the reversal?
Where's a character art going?
I know all that stuff.

(01:06:48):
I don't know.
Sometimes I sit down in front ofa blinking dot in front of a
piece of paper and I go, Wow,what do I know?
So I'm all this, I'm alwaystaking courses and classes
because you will never know itall in screenwriting or
anything.
So when you're not learning,you've you're dead in this
business.
Um, so anyway, so here's what Ithink you're getting in the

(01:07:10):
business, you're a follower ofChrist.
Uh, why are you getting in?
What's your talent set?
Uh, and the other thing you needto do is uh if you've got
family, there's three key thingsyou have to do.
First is your verticalrelationship with God, second is
uh uh your relationship withyour family, and then third
comes your relationship with theworld uh in your work.

(01:07:31):
So you want to have thatfoundation before you go out,
you get the lot of temptationsin business.
Man, when I first had thebusiness, I was a wild man until
God got me under control and Hegave me a wife better than I
deserved.
And you know, thank God, becausethere's no telling where I would
end it up.
Uh but the other thing is isyour home, your work is going to
be erratic, right?

(01:07:53):
So uh I would suggest alwayslook for uh alternative forms of
passive income.
So if you say you can afford tobuy an apartment, see if you can
buy a duplex, rent that otherside out to help cover your nuts
so you're just not up against itall the time.
You want to try to stay out ofdebt, you want to live below
your means.

(01:08:13):
It's easiness, but whoa, I'mmaking this much money.
Let's go buy a great house, abig car.
You're gonna get swallowed up indebt.
And what's going on in thefinancial world right now?
Trust me, live, buy a duplex,live under your means.
If you're first starting out andand you don't want to rent, you
want to have some find a smallpiece of property, put
electrical power sewer, get amotorhome or a trailer, put it

(01:08:34):
on there, live on that.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, but keep your nut reallylow, get that paid off.
And here's a great thing.
Then when you can't afford topass and move it, you can rent
that out to somebody else.
So now you're building equity,you have cash flow, right?
Anything you have that's a hobbythat on Saturdays you can make
money off of, that you can goonline, you can work an extra

(01:08:55):
day.
Build up your bank account andbuy assets that are going to pay
your nut so that by the timeyou're in this, by the time you
get to your end of your career,you have a big cash flow that
you don't have to go to workevery day.
You have a choice to take moviesand pictures, right?
Um, listen, five years ago, Iwanted to understand the

(01:09:16):
blockchain.
So I started building Ethereumminers, right?
And and uh Bitcoin miners.
So I said, I'm gonna try thisbecause you know it may take
them a year to pay off a stuff,but once they're paid for that,
and you know, sure enough, Ifigured out how to build them.
I was interested, and now theysit in a garage and they you
know they just mine Ethereumcoins, I don't have to worry
about them, you know.

(01:09:36):
But they do that, they'll andthey're not big ones, they just
mine a little bit, but you know,they're still working as the
price of Ethereum and stuff goup and down, it's it becomes
valuable.
So, second of all, look for sometype of passive income you can
have outside of this business soyou're not dependent on it,
right?
That's so that when you when youget into shows and you're making

(01:09:57):
a lot of money, put that moneyinto assets that are going to
make you money, not things thatare gonna cost you a payment at
the end of every month.
You know, God honors that too,because listen, I'm a big giver.
Whatever I get, I'm putting alarge percentage of it out there
because it's not my money, it'shis.
And he tells me, like,Samaritan's purse is one that
I'd like to contribute tobecause they go all over the

(01:10:18):
world, people are disastrous,they go help them, right?
So I contribute to people likethat.
So uh, you know, so get yourfamily set first, then get your
financial system set up in a ina manner so that once you do
start making some money, livebelow your means, but try to
find a way to get more incomecoming back into it.

(01:10:40):
And so I think that's notstressed enough in the film
business about how the hardshipis.
Listen, I I've been throughthere were strikes.
I was a year without work, I washeavy in debt, and I always
honor my debts, I always paidthem off, but it would take a
year to get them.
And the great thing is you makea lot of night.
So when you get back, you canpay them off.
But there was just always acycle like this of you know,
feast or famine, feast orfamine.

(01:11:01):
So you want to be able to findsomething like I finally did.
Do you break that that cycle sothat you get constant income
from them?

That is really good advice, and I hope everyone
who's listening in, it's that issuch sage practical wisdom that
I don't think enough peoplewell.
One of the things we've thoughtabout doing uh at Act One is
offering um financial coursesbecause there's people just get
into way too much debt, theythey come to Los Angeles, you

(01:11:32):
know, they're coming fromsomeplace that you can afford to
live, and they come to someplacethat you can't afford to live,
and um, and it everything getsget it just gets more and more
complicated.
And if you can avoid that, um,you're only setting yourself up
for longer-term success.
Yes.
And I think that's really wise.
I want to I want to close withthis, Arthur.
You we were talking brieflyabout kind of your passion for

(01:11:56):
um uh praying, helping people uhuh uh pray through uh spiritual
warfare and things, and you'vedeveloped that am I am I saying
this correct?
You you've developed actuallydeveloped some tools and some
things to help people, and thisis based on personal experience,
is that right?

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:10):
Right, right.
Yeah, my my daughter wentthrough a terrible physical
stretch that uh uh she's had hadthese terrible headaches since
she was 12.
And man, we took her to everyspecialist there was, um, every
scan, every every allopathicdoctor thing we could, and
nature pass, everything, and shejust wasn't getting any better.
And uh, she's all thesetherapies.

(01:12:32):
My my wife actually became amaster herbalist during this to
find natural things that wouldhelp her, and it didn't
remediate some of it.
But one day she passed out andshe was in a uh through an
ambulance on the way to thehospital, and her organs were
failing.
And I've been studying so Isaid, I said, listen, there's
nothing physical that we haven'tdone that nobody's diagnosis.
I said it's gotta be.

(01:12:53):
I went back to the instructionmanual for life, the Bible.
I said, There's got to besomething in here that tells me
what's wrong.
And listen, I went through 12years of peripheral school.
I had 10,000 hours of religioustraining by the time I got out
of there.
Um, and so I always knew ifthere was something wrong, I
could go back to thatinstruction.
So I went back, looked at it,and I looked at what did Jesus

(01:13:14):
do every time he heals somebody.
And I said, Wow, every time heheals somebody, first he cast
out something that wasoppressing or afflicting them, a
demon or something, you know.
And that was every time he healssomebody, and so I said, Well,
that's that's gotta be if thatwas true, then it's gotta be
true now.
So I started studying peoplelike uh Wynne Waterley, Derek

(01:13:37):
Prince, um, and then Bob Larsonon spiritual warfare.
And I'd studied a lot of them upto this point, and I found
myself in that ambulance.
I said, Well, now this is therubber meets the road.
Is this gonna work or is itgonna work?
I put my head on her chest and Idid spiritual warfare prayers
against anything that might be apressing or flicking or cast it
out and asked for and loose thehealing angels of Jesus Christ

(01:13:57):
upon her.
And she woke up in the the theambulance said, Wow, you know
what happened?
And I said, You passed out, andyou know, you were heading down
the wrong road.
Um, and so from that point, uh,I said, I gotta learn more about
this.
So I went uh I uh went to BobLarson's International School of
Exorcism.
It took me about three years toget through that, studying

(01:14:18):
spiritual warfare.
Um, and when people found out Iwas doing this, they would call
me up, say, hey, I'm having thisproblem, can you help me out?
Uh so I'd either go to theirhouse, they'd come out of mine,
and I would I would help them indeliverance sessions, getting
rid of whatever's oppressing andafflicting them.
And when COVID hit, I couldn'tdo that anymore.
And we moved from LA up to uhnorthern Idaho.

(01:14:38):
And so my daughter said, Listen,it's 2020, there's nothing else
you can do.
You're not gonna be doing anymovies.
Uh, you've been talking aboutwanting to do this app.
I can show you how to do itbecause she does it, she takes
people and takes a bill.
I took so I came up with an appthat explains spiritual warfare,
the the battlefield, who theparticipants are, and then
warfare prayers that you canpray.
And I and I pray uh thosethrough audio on this app.

(01:15:02):
And the the app is called ummyprayer warrior uh.com.
And you log on that, there's aone-time fee to to uh log into
it, and then it has theseprayers, and some of them I'll
pray with you, and others arejust prayers you can pray if
you're having problems withanger, fear, depression.
Listen, suicide is one of thebiggest things I work with
people on.
Suicide's a demon.

(01:15:23):
So when you hear that stufftalking in your ear saying, Oh,
it's not gonna get any better,you got to kill yourself.
That's a lie from hell, and youcan rebuke that, you can bind
it, cast it out, and loose theministry angels of Jesus Christ
to come help you.
I can't tell you the number ofpeople I've had.
Uh I was on um, it's funny.
So I did this app 2020, and Iwas just gonna see if I could
get on a show, sending the showsto find out.

(01:15:45):
So I contacted Coast to Coast AMwith George Norrie, and he said,
Hey, we've got a slot frommidnight to 2 a.m.
on um Christmas Eve.
I said, Yes.
I went on, I explained what Iwas doing, what spiritual
warfare was, what thebattlefield we're in, and man,
the the thing just blew up.
And then I had a lot of peoplecontacting me uh off the show

(01:16:06):
who had problems, and I would doZoom calls with them and I would
help.
And some of them were in serioustrouble, but I in the major
people had called me were facingsuicide, and so I taught them
how to deal with that.
And I said, and I and I said,next time that happens, I said,
Well, you call me, and I said,Satan hates to be laughed at.
So the next time he called youhe calls me at midnight, this

(01:16:27):
thing's after me.
I gotta kill myself.
I said, No, it's not that's justthe life of now.
I said, We're gonna laugh at itright now.
So I taught her how to bind itup, cast it out, and I said, Now
we can start laughing.
What?
We start laughing at it becausehe hates to be humiliated.
And I said, This next thingwe're gonna do is we're gonna
start praying for everybodyelse.
What do you mean?
I said, Everybody else is who'sfeeling so excited, we're gonna
pray for them right now.

(01:16:48):
She says, Well, okay, so we prayfor them.
I said, We're gonna pray forworld peace.
I says, She says, Why are wepraying for all these things?
He said, I want you to learnthat every time Satan comes
after you, it's gonna cost him.
So he's first he's gonna come toyou, he's gonna try to oppress
and let you get you to killyourself.
That's not gonna work.
You're gonna laugh at him, andthen you're gonna pray for other
people, which is gonna cost hiskingdom because you're gonna

(01:17:08):
allow the angels of Jesus Christto go after all his demons.
She says, Wow, I feel betteralready.
I said, Yeah, it's greatkicking, you know, demon butt in
it.
She says, Yeah.
Um, and I can't tell you, I'vehad hundreds of people that I
I've done that Zoom calls, phonecalls, emergency calls.
So uh I have I have that app,and then I have a book I'm gonna

(01:17:29):
put out before Easter.
It's called that's um SpiritualWarfare Prayer Manual.
And essentially it covers thethings that are in the app, but
what it people wanted a writtenversion of it.
So when they're on the road,they could open it, they could
read it.
It says, Okay, guys, I'm gonnado that.
So it'll be it'll be an Amazonebook and it'll be a published
book you can order also.

Oh, very cool.
That's um, that's very excitingto hear, and we'll look forward
to getting the word out for thatwhen it comes out.
Arthur, this has been a lot offun.

SPEAKER_01 (01:17:58):
Um, well, I hope I've helped some people.
Listen, in this in this world,it's all about helping each
other and uh trying to have somefun while we're doing it, you
know.
Uh, with everything that's beengoing on in the world and and
all the division and you know,wars and rumors of wars and
stuff going on now.
We can't forget that God hascreated us as victors, not

(01:18:20):
victims.
Amen.
And as I don't care if you'refive years old, you're 105, as
long as you can pray for otherpeople and pray against the evil
in this world, you're in thebattle and you're one of his
warriors and you're a victor,not a victim.

That's well said, my friend.
This has been a real joy.
I um I I really think that uhpeople are gonna get a lot out
of this podcast.
You've got great stories, and uhit's just so good.
Uh anytime I've ever had achance to spend time with you, I
just feel like I've always comeaway um with a big smile on my
face.
So thank you, Arthur.
It's well, James, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 (01:18:55):
Listen, I think it's such a great thing you're doing
to train up the next generation.
We need more people like you outthere doing that.
So anytime I can be of helpdoing anything for you guys to
train up the next generation,I'm there for your brother.

Thank you, my friend.
I like to close all of ourpodcast by praying for our
guests.
Would you allow me to do that?
Oh, absolutely.
All right, let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we just uhpause and just thank you.
Thank you for my brother Arthurand just uh just uh the
testimony that he that he livesum the way you have used him in

(01:19:31):
so many different ways.
Thank you, God, for using him onfilm sets and TV sets and the
crews and all the people thathe's worked with.
Um and God, thank you for thisum this ministry he has of um
helping people um um uhexperience freedom um from um
from spiritual warfare.

(01:19:52):
And God, we just uh I just praya blessing upon Arthur.
I pray a blessing of protectionand of health for his uh entire
family.
Um I pray for um just a a hedgeof protection over um his family
and everything that they do.
I God I pray especially for thisnew film that he's working on,
he's prepping.
I pray that you would um givehim your favor and help him with

(01:20:12):
uh just all the details and umGod, we just entrust all these
things to you.
We lay it all at your feet anduh we thank you.
We pray this in Jesus' name andyour promises we stand.
Amen.
Thank you for listening to theAct One podcast, celebrating
over 20 years as the premiertraining program for Christians
in Hollywood.
Act One is a Christian communityof entertainment industry

(01:20:34):
professionals who train andequip storytellers to create
works of truth, goodness, andbeauty.
The Act One program is adivision of Master Media
International.
To financially support themission of Act One or to learn
more about our programs, visitus online at Act OneProgram.com.
And to learn more about the workof Master Media, go to
Mastermedia.com.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Burden

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Director/Producer Arthur Anderson

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Burden

All Episodes

Director/Producer Arthur Anderson

Stuff You Should Know