February 21, 2025 • 47 mins
Welcome back film folks for another installment of Legendary Lore! We've got a big one for you this week. One might even say it's the biggest ever built. This week we dive into (*hehe) Mij Cameron's epic romance, Titanic (1997). Why is it a nightmare for a director to be on walkie talkie? How did Kate Winslet survive this entire shoot? Is it ever ok to throw temper tantrums when you're the boss? Also, Chris has some 'splainin' to do, and if you haven't guessed who it is yet, we finally reveal who our new co-host is! All this and more for Part 1 of this Legendary Lore. Enjoy the Show!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello film friends, friends of film and everyone in between.
(00:14):
Welcome to the Film Folklore Podcast.
I am Jed Props and I am joined today by Chris A.D.
Hello.
Justin Sound.
Hi.
And our newest full-time member of the band, Heather Rae Costumes.
Hey there.
Boom, boom, boom.
Boom, boom, boom.
All right.
(00:35):
Heather Rae, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Excited to be here.
How have you been?
I've been, you know, like everyone else.
Like everybody else.
Yeah.
So just a real quick aside, if any listeners haven't done it yet,
please go check out our summer mini series we did last year,
where we did a deep dive and love letter to the Rocky and Creed franchise
(00:56):
called Yo Adrian.
And Heather Rae was awesome on that.
And we're excited to have you here.
So welcome aboard.
Well, thank you.
Happy to be here.
And Chris, we have some catching up to do with you.
I guess we're going to call this housekeeping, I guess.
So there's some questions that have cropped up early this season.
So you mind a little quick Q&A?
(01:18):
Let's do it.
OK.
So the first thing is, how is it that you play in two bands at the same time?
Have you seen the guy that has like the bass drum,
and then he's got the accordion, and then the monkey,
and he claps the cymbals?
Can't forget the monkey.
Can't.
An organ grinder?
Sure.
(01:38):
Is that the term?
Why not?
I mean, the monkey popped up visually in my head
before you even said monkey, so I knew where you were going with it.
I know exactly your band.
Yeah, so that's me.
We're terrible.
And when I say we, I mean, it's just me doing that with the monkey.
Oh, I thought the name of the band is We're Terrible.
That could be.
It could be.
(02:00):
The name, why not?
The next question we have is, who did you piss off exactly to end up in manure
not once, but three times?
God.
Probably God, whichever one you believe in.
All the gods.
All of the gods got together, and they're like, dude, we got to work.
(02:25):
Is it possible Marty McFly was involved?
Probably.
He's got a time machine, so it would make sense.
That does make sense.
We also only heard manure.
So can you elaborate on what kind of manure we're dealing with?
Are we talking like a fertilizer or just straight animal shit?
Like, which animal?
Was it human?
I mean, there's all different kinds of poop out there.
(02:45):
Why?
I'm not.
That's what I called.
You know, limiting it to just one.
I mean, there's whale poop.
You know, I mean, it just exists in the water.
But I mean, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
So a bucket of guano.
Sure, man.
So all of it, you know, all the poop.
OK.
Yeah.
Well, I'm glad we could clarify that for everybody.
(03:06):
And one last question, Chris.
Where's Zoe?
Oh, she is on the underwater adventure.
You know the people that got crushed on the submersible,
all the rich people?
Oh, yeah.
On the way to Titanic.
Yeah.
Well, they had a backup to that sub.
And they said that it was perfectly fine.
(03:29):
And so Zoe is, she's going to go look at the Titanic.
Which brings us to legendary lore time.
That's right.
We're talking today about the epic.
What a segue.
That was masterful.
This guy comes in.
And we want to talk about A-game.
So yeah, today we're going to talk about the epic big budget
blockbuster that is Titanic.
(03:50):
But first, because I can't help myself,
it's time for Find the Fake Movie Title.
Brr, brr, brr, brr.
So I wanted to go with the blockbuster theme here.
And so it was actually easier than I
thought to find obscure flops that were gigantic budgets.
So there's a disaster theme going on with these.
(04:12):
If that is any clue, we'll see.
So the first one is called, or Heather,
do you need to know rules or anything?
I mean, I'm a pretty smart girl.
I can probably pick it up.
But if you'd like to give me a rundown.
There's two real, one fake.
That's it.
I mean, the rundown wasn't for me,
but for our lovely listeners.
(04:32):
Sure.
Yeah.
They're probably tired of me doing this.
But the first one is Moonfall.
The second title is Mojave or the Sun.
And the third title is Hard Rain.
I feel like there was a movie called Moonfall.
(04:54):
There was.
Yeah, that was definitely a movie.
I've heard of that.
I mean, I don't know what it was about.
I did not see it, but it rings a bell.
So I'm going with Moonfall.
Well, no, you want to find the fake one.
Oh, the fake one.
So if you think that one's real.
See, you did need to rundown.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sorry, Zoe needs a reminder every single time.
This is not how you do it, people.
OK, so there was a Moonfall.
(05:16):
And what were the other two?
Mojave or the Sun and Hard Rain.
I'm going to go with Mojave and the Sun is the fake one.
OK.
Because I feel like there was a Hard Rain, too.
Or I might be thinking a song.
I don't know.
OK.
Mm.
Mm.
(05:36):
Mm.
Mm.
Mm.
Mm.
Mm.
I'm going to say Hard Rain.
You're going to go Hard Rain?
All right.
And Chris?
Manure.
Was that one of them?
That wasn't one of them?
No, it was butt stuff.
There's a
Manure Fall.
No, that's a real movie.
Yes.
There's Moonfall.
Yeah.
(05:57):
Moonfall, Mojave or the Sun, and Hard Rain.
I'm going to go with Mojave and the Sun.
OK.
The answer is Mojave or the Sun.
Justin staying consistent over there.
(06:20):
So yeah, I was like, guy, I'm getting a little too recent.
You'll probably will know these.
So Moon.
Wait, wait, wait.
I have a question.
Yes.
In Moonfall, did the moon actually fall?
Yes.
So it's a, it's a.
Halle Berry.
I let's see if I can look.
(06:40):
Yes, I believe Halle Berry is in it.
It's.
Oh, God.
Not a time to blink on his name.
Roland Emmerich movie.
Independence Day.
Oh, that guy.
That guy.
Yeah.
It's one of those you would think.
The not Michael Bay one.
Oh, that guy.
You would think Gerard Butler would be in it.
I don't think he is, but.
(07:00):
No, he was in Olympus has Fallen, I guess.
Not Olympus has Fallen, I'm trying to think of Geostorm.
Right, same concept.
Right.
So a mysterious force knocks the moon from its orbit
and sends it hurtling on a collision course towards Earth.
Mysterious force.
Do we ever find out what the mysterious force is?
Because if not, that's just lazy.
You know, this is also an episode of how did this get made.
(07:22):
And I still don't remember what they said.
So.
I missed that one.
I love that podcast.
5.5 IMDB, 35% on the tomato meter.
I had to start doing tomato meter
because Zoe kept asking.
Hard Rain, which I do remember, is from 1998.
It's Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater.
(07:43):
It is.
That's a dynamic duo right there.
This movie is amazing for all the wrong reasons.
The partner and nephew of an armored truck driver
tries to prevent $3 million from being taken by a gang
during a catastrophic flooding caused by a severe storm.
Wow, that's a lot going on there.
Yeah.
A fun footnote about both of these real movies.
(08:06):
If you include inflation, both of them
lost more than $100 million.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah, big time flops.
Another fun trivia about Hard Rain.
If you remember the original Daily Show with Craig Kilborn,
he had Christian Slater on promoting this movie.
I remember this.
And he was relentlessly taunting Christian Slater,
(08:30):
where he just kept going.
So we've had earthquakes.
We've had volcanoes.
We've had, and he goes, but now it's a hard rain.
So he said, and he pulls out a card,
and he starts going, I understand
there are some alternative titles for this movie.
Strong Precipitation, Heavy Downfall.
He just starts going down this list.
(08:50):
And Christian Slater, I remember he was just
nodding and taking it.
But yeah, it was not a good movie.
It's got to be hard to promote a movie that you know is garbage.
He definitely knew it was garbage.
You could tell.
And I have seen it once.
I remember jet skis inside of a school that was flooded.
(09:10):
That was one of the things I remember.
Yeah, lots of action that makes no sense.
Anywho, so great job, everyone, especially Justin.
And we will go on to Titanic.
What was Mojave and the Sun about?
Whatever y'all want it to be.
(09:30):
That's the movie we write.
Yeah, I was struggling for a fake title.
There's so many bad, bad big budget flops.
And there's so many I hadn't heard of.
I was writing down titles for later use.
And I think you're just putting words together now.
(09:51):
And that's what makes it more confusing,
because a lot of movie titles are just that.
It sounds deeper.
It sounds deep.
I would watch a movie called Mojave and the Sun
before I watched a movie called Hard Rain.
Let's be real.
I mean, most people would.
So we're going to get into the 1997 Titanic,
(10:14):
starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio,
amongst a host of others, directed by James Cameron.
Everybody knows this movie.
Are y'all ready to take a deep dive to the ocean floor
and back?
Lots of puns coming.
I'm as ready as I'll ever be.
Exactly.
All right, here we go.
I'm going to call this Titanic Tempers, Furors
Fatigue, and Unsolved Soup Crimes.
(10:35):
That is our title here.
I like it.
Yeah.
So before we get in any further research for today's episode,
comes from Cheat Sheet.com, The Guardian, my favorite go-to
collider, Hogg Global Engineering's website,
GlobalNews.com, Looper.com, Entertainment Weekly, LA Times,
and Vulture.
I think I just set a record on this one.
(10:58):
And possibly Wikipedia.
Possibly Wikipedia.
Heather may have her own notes from Wikipedia.
I always ask this question, have you seen this movie?
Everyone's seen this, right?
Yes.
I mean, Zoe revealed in a previous episode
that even she's seen this movie.
So it's a shame she's not here, because this
would be the first time that we've all collectively
(11:20):
seen the topical movie.
But she's giving me, she's texting real time info
from looking at the Titanic right now.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah, she says it's boring.
She's watching it right now?
She's at the bottom of the ocean looking at it.
She's on the whatever that submarine.
The Ocean Gate.
Ocean Gate.
Oh, right, right.
I thought she meant she was watching the movie.
(11:41):
Well, side by side, right?
She's watching the movie while the real thing's in front of her.
I think that's it, because you can't actually even see when.
Deep Sea Wi-Fi is killer.
It's really good.
I mean, it's for millionaires, that's why.
Right.
It's got to be good.
Or yeah, billionaires.
With a B, maybe.
Dead billionaires.
Anywho.
Only kind of good billionaires.
(12:03):
So all right, if you haven't seen Titanic for any weird reason
and somehow you've never heard of the true story,
I don't know what's wrong with you.
Go look it up.
It's basically the largest ship ever made, Sank.
And anything else to add to that, as far as the real story goes?
Giant ocean liner, early 1900s.
(12:26):
I mean, I have lots of Titanic info.
Yeah, we're going to get into it.
Yeah, we'll get there.
Yeah.
So I mean, like most of these movies,
I feel like we all know a little bit from behind the scenes.
It's hard to not when it's a movie of this scale.
And of course, once I start deep diving,
I just realize there's so much more.
(12:47):
And most projects have issues.
We all know that.
It's just the nature of the beast.
But something like Titanic has to come with some nutty stuff.
And of course, it does.
And so y'all buckle up, because it's coming.
So we're going to start with the general shooting of it.
The bulk of the movie was shot over six months
(13:08):
in a small seaside area of Mexico called Rosarito Beach.
They actually built a film studio
there to make the movie, which is pretty nuts.
Is that on the west coast, or is it in the Gulf of Mexico?
I'll give you a hint. It's called Baja Studios.
I don't know Mexico well enough.
West.
OK.
Perfect.
So let's see.
(13:31):
They shot all of the non-ship stuff, more or less.
Excuse me, in Nova Scotia.
And then all of the ship-related stuff was in Mexico, more or less.
The studios they built consisted of several sound stages,
several water tanks, with the largest water tank being
(13:53):
a 17 million gallon, what they call a horizon tank,
with 270 degrees of ocean visibility.
Fun trivia.
So how much land, like if it were land,
I know it's not land, but how much would be,
how would it be a mile, like an acre?
(14:16):
It's a fair question to ask.
It's hard to say, because we don't know the depth of the tank.
I don't need to know the depth.
I'm talking like square footage across the surface.
I can put it in this perspective.
The Titanic they built was a 9 10th scale.
It's mostly a steel frame with paneling for the major ship ship.
(14:38):
But that should give you a pretty good idea.
It was almost full size.
Fucking big.
So yes, it was fucking big.
All right, got it.
More water than your low flow toilet.
You definitely, if you have the two button option,
it was a two button.
Yeah.
You know, OK.
(14:59):
So this is a little bit of a fun trivia.
Because this water tank was deconstructed
after the production ended, do you
all want to take a wild guess where the current largest water
tank in the world is?
To the best of my knowledge, I wasn't
able to find anything that is different.
Vegas.
Shreveport, Louisiana.
(15:21):
Because it was built for the Coast Guard flop, The Guardian.
And the city wanted to keep it afterwards.
And so it's still in existence up there.
And at the time, it was the largest water tank
because it wasn't being torn down for any reason.
So to the best of my knowledge, it's
still standing as the largest water tank.
(15:43):
That is weird.
Filming water tank, I should say.
Which water was worse for you, the water in Mexico
or the water in Shreveport?
Shreveport.
OK.
Yeah, I have to go with Shreveport.
And I know that seemed like a flippant answer,
but I actually did a series of tests.
There were beakers involved.
Very good.
(16:03):
So yeah, when you take into account,
I also want to throw in, when you think about the prep,
design, build, tear down, all of that,
you're talking about a year start to finish.
So this was basically a year long project.
Money wise, what a gig.
So to start us with, we might get into some ear muff
(16:26):
situations, Chris.
Just giving you a little heads up.
OK, I'm scared.
But OK.
James Cameron, Jim Cameron, as he's
known to friends and colleagues, he already
had a reputation for going big before he tackled anything
the likes of Titanic or later Avatar.
In some ways, you have to mire the Cajones or Cajones,
(16:48):
if you're a Rocky V, on this guy because he had a little house
for you, Heather, eh?
I got it.
I caught it.
I caught it.
But if he never saw the word.
That's what I'm saying.
How did he?
Call back.
All right.
So he's never really given a shit about budgets
(17:09):
and I guess you can say in his defense,
it's worked well for him because he's
succeeded on all of his projects.
So that said, Titanic was originally
slated for about 138 shooting days
with a budget of about $110 million at the time.
And it finished up more like 160 days of shooting
and over $200 million.
(17:31):
I don't think I put it in here, but I
did read that essentially every minute of screen time
is $1 million if you're watching the movie.
Oh, wow.
That's wild.
I do want to put it into perspective.
It took $200 million to make the movie in 1997, right?
It cost $7.5, $7.5 million to build the ship in three years
(17:52):
in two days, the actual Titanic.
And it was $24.5 million in today's money.
In today's money.
In today's money.
So $200 million to make the movie.
There was $420,000 in cargo, which is about $15 million
today.
So even adding up that whole thing,
(18:14):
it doesn't even come close to how much it
cost to make this movie.
Yeah, but the movie didn't sink.
It didn't.
Good points.
Although.
Wordplay.
Although a little foreshadowing.
Can we?
You just said it all, man.
All right, that's a wrap, everybody.
That's a wrap.
I mean, personally, I disagree, but we'll get to that.
(18:35):
Also a little foreshadowing.
The 910th scale boat did sink to a certain degree,
but we'll get into that.
There is some irony coming.
So I didn't go deep into this, but I'm
pretty sure at least since Aliens to the Present,
he's been over budget on everything he's done.
(18:58):
So when it comes to his reputation,
he demands a lot of his AD staff and crew,
as we're about to learn.
And I've worked with some ADs that were on Titanic.
They did not have the greatest of things to say.
There's actually a picture I should have included in here,
(19:21):
but I didn't.
But they had told me that they're on several tiers,
each one on a different floor.
And he's basically yelling and screaming and barking orders
at everyone all simultaneously for all these moving parts
and pieces.
It didn't occur to me until I saw this picture.
He has a radio on his hip, and you're going, oh my god,
(19:43):
I think James Graham was on Channel One.
Oh my god, what a nightmare.
Oh my god.
That does not sound pleasant.
In addition to a bullhorn screaming at everybody.
Probably both.
He probably used the bullhorn and with a mic
at the end of the bullhorn, probably.
Did he have a lift that he was just going up and down?
That's a good question.
(20:04):
Because I need to go up to the seventh floor.
His own ego allows him to levitate.
Much like Jesus, the mythical chupacabra from Mexico.
Speaking of ego, there's even a nickname
for his on-set alter ego, Midge, which is Jim Backwards.
(20:25):
Ha ha ha.
So yeah, he's often been described
as a tyrant on set screaming, chewing out crew.
It's fairly common for people to quit on his movies.
Several people quit during the making of Titanic.
So let's see.
Chris, I don't know.
Do you want to speak to this at all?
(20:46):
Like, this is very abnormal.
I mean, no.
It just sounds fucking awful.
I mean, there was a show that I worked on one time
where the first AD, of course, was on Waukee,
but so was the director of photography and the director.
Oh, god.
And so those are probably the three most self-important people
(21:10):
that are on a film set.
And what they would do was you would shoot the scene.
You would get a take.
And then all three of them, because they're all
three of the most important people in their minds,
would talk on the Waukee talkie to one another,
but they would just step on each other.
That tracks.
(21:31):
And guys, I mean, I don't know how indefinitely
you get this, but when we say stepping on,
it means you're trying to use the Waukee talkie at the same time
as someone else.
And then it just comes out into this garbled sound,
which is horrible in everybody else's ear.
Like an audio train wreck.
Yeah.
It just sounds.
That's exactly what it sounds like.
(21:51):
Static and just it just hurts your ears.
Unpleasant trees.
Yeah.
It just hurts your ears.
Yeah, it's just terrible.
And for some reason, it's like twice the volume
as like a normal speaking voice, which, by the way,
this is then a side.
We need to just put a compressor on the Waukee talkie channels,
and then we would make trillions of dollars.
Did I just say that on here?
(22:12):
I didn't mean that.
I'm joking.
That's not a thing.
You're stupid.
Why are you getting at it?
We're all looking for side gigs.
This is your millions, baby.
But I guarantee you what was happening
was that something would happen.
It sounds like the guy.
I mean, look, whatever you think of his movies,
I mean, it sounds, you know, I'm sure that he is a tyrant.
(22:32):
I'm sure he's not a very nice guy when he's on set.
And I'm sure that, you know, they would get a take.
They would get in the can, and then immediately after,
he would get on the Waukee, and he would bark an order
and then not listen to the answer.
And I'm sure that there would be a very reasonable answer
to why something can't happen.
Like, hey, we got to do that again, because that sucked.
(22:55):
And it was like, hey, Jim, one of our divers just drowned,
so we have to like fish him out of the giant tank,
whatever it might be.
I've worked on shows like that, too.
And then I'm sure that he didn't hear the answer.
Are you?
Because he probably just turned it off,
and then, you know, barks in again,
probably stepping on whoever was speaking or whatever,
(23:15):
and then just barks the same order.
And like, that's probably just the tip of the iceberg, huh?
Nice.
For the disaster.
I mean, I'm sure it was just very hard on the crew.
Yeah, and maybe, I guess, we can say,
(23:36):
because there's not really a lot of situations
where a director typically would get on radio.
Like, I guess the example that I can think of
is actors in a car, and he wants to talk to the actors.
And so they'll leave a Waukee in the car for the director
to talk to the actors, which, that makes sense.
That's fairly standard.
(23:57):
But there really aren't a lot of moments
where usually you cringe when a DP or a director
is on radio, Channel One especially.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a bad deal, because they don't, like, we all have to,
everyone who's on Channel One, I mean,
we have to do it for our jobs.
(24:18):
And there's a certain etiquette and protocol,
and the way that you speak.
And since they don't know what that is,
and they don't adhere to any of the rules,
it's usually chaos.
Yeah, actually, I just remembered years ago,
Donnie FX was doing atmosphere smoke on a set,
and the DP was on Channel One.
(24:38):
And he was, I want to say Hungarian or something,
so he had this accent, but it was just like, Donnie,
more smoke, too much smoke, less smoke, Donnie,
a little bit more smoke.
As if it's a dial, you can just so quickly
change smoke or something like,
it just sounded like a nightmare for him,
because his DP is on Channel One, giving him smoke notes.
My God.
(24:58):
Anyway, so we're going to get a little bit more into Jim
or Midge as we get further along,
but I want to sidestep and talk about Kate Winslet
for a little bit, which Heather and I were talking a little bit
before recording, like, I like Kate Winslet,
(25:19):
but I was kind of indifferent as far as my opinion of her.
After doing this research, God bless Kate Winslet,
because my God, she's a trooper on this.
I love her.
A lot of actors, especially TV actors, no offense,
but they're kind of like bubble people.
Like, they bruise easily.
They all have weird allergy situations and stuff like that,
(25:46):
like a lot of sensitivities and everything.
She, in this shooting, goes through stuff like a stunt man,
I mean, like, as you're about to learn,
but I mean, kudos to her, because she went for it.
She also, thankfully for us, she has gone on record publicly
about a lot of the behind the scenes stuff,
which is why we know a lot of this stuff we're
(26:08):
about to talk about.
So we're going to see, as well, she
is largely responsible for the movie coming together
in the way that it did.
And nobody's worked with Kate Winslet, right?
I have not.
I wish Kate will come to New Orleans.
Come to New Orleans, Kate.
We have like two projects right now.
(26:30):
There's plenty of space.
So anyway, so she had a rough time, like I said.
She got injured multiple times.
She almost died a couple of times, no biggie.
And she just took it on the chin and tough through it,
which I just, again, I can't name a lot of actors
who would have put it up with stuff.
Well, this was her real breakout role, too.
(26:50):
So I mean.
Yeah, she took it with a smile, too.
I mean, that's the thing.
In fact, Heather, do you see a Los Angeles Times interview
there with her?
No.
If you see that, there's a little snippet for you to read.
OK.
Nope.
Kidding.
(27:10):
OK, why don't you tell us what it says, Jed?
I can.
I sure can.
Just imagine I sound like Heather A.
Why don't you read it?
Because you got it.
I'll tell you what you can do with it.
So in an interview with Los Angeles Times,
Kate Winslet called filming the story of the famed ocean
liner Ann Ordeal.
During the course of production, she nearly drowned,
(27:32):
got the flu, and was constantly cold
from being immersed in icy water.
She told the publication, I chipped a small bone
in my elbow.
At one point, I had deep bruises all over my arms.
I looked like a battered wife.
Winslet also slipped on a replica of the ship's deck,
where she got a gash on her right knee.
The tough shoot left her and other cast members exhausted.
(27:55):
Filming Titanic not only dragged on for months,
but the cast and crew also were putting in 19-hour days.
Kate Winslet didn't realize just how
demanding the process of making the movie
would be when she was cast in the role of the film's heroine.
Quote, the first day started at 5 AM and went on to 1 AM.
(28:16):
Winslet told the Los Angeles Times,
nothing could have prepared me for it.
She continued, there were quite a few 20-hour days,
and 2 thirds of it was night shooting because the Titanic
sank at night.
It was every man for himself on the set.
You had to ensure that you snatched some sleep
during the day with a black eye mask on.
(28:37):
Sometimes you'd find yourself having lunch at 2 AM
or breakfast at 4 PM.
It was very disorienting.
By the way, the crew was working through this entire time
without any face mask, eye masks, or anything like that.
Incidentally.
And also, I still wear, I have to wear an eye mask
every single night, even though my room
is basically blackout curtains.
(28:59):
And the reason for that was because on Homefront,
did you work on that?
I did not do Homefront.
I worked on that a little bit.
Yeah, it was a dog shit thing.
Shout out Homefront.
Do we get in trouble for that?
We'll find out.
Yeah.
Tune in next week.
Where Chris is getting sued.
Yeah.
(29:19):
And only if it's slander, which doesn't sound like,
I've never seen it.
Statham's here.
Oh, hey now.
And he's kicking Chris's ass, great.
Because it was eight weeks of night.
And basically after the third or fourth day
of just coming, you know, it's 9 AM
and you have to get some sleep, and I couldn't
because I'm seeing the sun, it's coming into my room.
(29:42):
I got an eye mask and now, I mean,
unless it's literally complete darkness,
I just can't sleep.
Well, you're such a princess, Chris.
I look like Jajah Gabor when I'm going to bed.
I mean, I'm gonna get the eye mask.
Does it have like lace on the edges of it?
Well, of course, I said Jajah Gabor.
It's satin.
And I'm wearing a nice nightie.
And I look radiant and resplendent in my eye mask.
(30:06):
Old habits die hard because Chris came over for dinner
a couple weeks ago and he ate his entire meal
over my trash can, which I was like, Chris, you can sit.
It's the only way I feel comfortable
is by eating over the trash can.
He insisted on a paper plate.
I was like, I have normal plates.
(30:28):
Don't want your damn-
You used a plate instead of a napkin?
Fancy.
Can you just grab the whole thing in tin foil
and let me eat it over a trash can plate?
That's how we all eat.
Isn't it?
No, just out of habit.
So Kate was also pretty candid when it came to
how old Midge treated the crew.
She speculated the whys, which there's definitely truth to,
(30:49):
but I think we can expand more from where she stopped politely.
Justin, do you see that?
Winslet said that while she and the film's other actors
didn't bear the brunt of James Cameron's reported temper,
she felt for the crew who did.
She believes Cameron didn't take his frustration out
on his actors for fear their performances
(31:10):
wouldn't remain up to par.
He's a nice guy, but the problem was that his vision
for the film was as clear as it was, she says.
He has a temper like you wouldn't believe.
As it was, the actors got off lightly.
I think Jim knew he couldn't shout at us
the way he did to his crew
because our performances would be no good.
She also shared Cameron was a really tough nut to crack.
(31:34):
There were times I genuinely, I was genuinely frightened of him.
However, I did like him, and I did come to understand him,
she stresses.
There were times he was understanding,
logistically it was very tough for a film for him,
as much as anyone.
By the end, I was existing on about four hours
of sleep per day, but Jim was existing on three.
(31:58):
Yeah, so I wanted for us to speak about this for a second
because there's a whole thing where the quote,
taking it out on part, that just gives me pause
and tickles my PTSD.
It's just that thing of like, it's an old school type
of thing that thankfully is seemingly going the way
(32:18):
of the dodo and dying off, but there's never a time
that you need to be screaming and yelling at people.
That never gets better work out of you.
It gets better work out of people.
We can say all that, but did y'all wanna say anything here
in regards to having a screamer of a director
or anything in that way?
(32:38):
I just never understand why the adults in the room
don't understand that they need to give us so little
for us to give them so much.
I never understand that.
Oh, and being talked to, like you're an absolute moron.
That kind of demeaning behavior, anyway.
(33:00):
But yeah, there is a changing culture.
I think it's good to mention that this behavior
should not have a place, whether it's our industry
or any industry, honestly.
I don't see a change in that much, honestly.
I can't say in the last movies I've done
in the last couple of years.
No, I mean, I have had, yeah, I have dealt with some people
(33:23):
that I would rather not.
I've had.
I mean, I've also dealt with lovely people.
Yeah, I've had an overall better,
I feel like it's dwindling if I'm judging by numbers.
The frequency of it seems less and less.
It could just be my personal luck of the draw.
I mean, there's that too.
I'd imagine there's some directors out there
that look up to this.
It's case by case, let's be real.
(33:45):
I mean, there's an Academy nominated director
in this upcoming Oscars that I have worked with
who is a screamer and a shithead to crew.
And now he's up for an Oscar and that kind of pisses me off.
Hint, it's a he, there you go.
But yeah, he made a PA cry.
People fell upward at a rapid rate in this industry.
(34:07):
Well, like I remember there was a PA
that was not over his shoulder in any way,
but she was, we had a ton of background.
We were in the casinos and it was very busy,
a lot of movement and she was just trying to find a monitor
because she had responsibilities.
And I wanna say she was maybe six-ish feet behind him.
(34:30):
And he realized that she was looking at his monitor.
And so he turned around and screamed at her
for looking at his monitor, made her cry.
That was such an unnecessary thing to do.
And yeah, now he's up for an Academy Award.
Cool. Interesting.
Yeah, it's like it's a musical project,
like a musician's involved.
Anyway, so you're gonna have to raise like
(34:53):
what Oscars were.
Oh, I'm gonna find out who this is.
Yeah.
As soon as we take a break.
Can't build a giant boat without making a few PAs cry.
Wasn't that the tagline on the poster for the-
Yeah, that was the first tagline they went with.
They decided to go something different.
(35:14):
Yeah. So I'm gonna start winding us down
because this is gonna be a two-parter, a two-parter.
But there's, already Chris has said it.
This is the tip of the iceberg.
(35:34):
But any thoughts or anything so far
where we are at this juncture,
we're gonna pick up with Winslet
when we get into our part two.
But any thoughts so far?
I mean, that this would have been miserable to work on.
Good money.
Miserable to work on.
I mean, this was back in the day
(35:55):
when really they did not give a fuck about safety.
I'll say the Mexico thing gives me pause.
I feel like it's in Mexico for a very good reason
that you can get away with a little bit more here and there.
Sure.
Yeah, there's no ocean there.
Ocean, yes, but Oshaw.
Yeah.
I'm sure there's-
(36:15):
Maybe there is, but-
Oh, I imagine there's something there in name
that probably has greased fingers a lot.
Well, I mean, I've gone-
Or at least in the middle of the time.
When I was in Morocco, I went to Atlas Studios
and took a little tour.
And first of all, nobody there, first of all.
It's in the middle of the desert.
Love it.
And secondly, I did get a,
I kinda hopped on a little two-person tour or whatever,
(36:39):
and we were walking around
and there was no guardrails, no say.
Somebody tried to climb up a very obviously
not meant to be climbed up space.
And the tour guide who was in charge of everything,
he's like, you might not wanna go up there.
It wasn't like, don't go up there.
Like that's, you gotta get out of it.
(36:59):
He was like, that's maybe not a good idea,
but have at it, dumb dumb.
Which I kinda respected actually, you know?
Which we don't need the same kind of insurance as you guys.
Exactly, there is no insurance.
Part of the outsourcing that we're experiencing right now
is it's not just that they can exploit labor,
(37:19):
but it's these other things as well.
Like Eastern Europe is very popular right now for shooting
and there's a lot of bad reasons for that.
And what's the union situation?
I know a lot of things are going.
There's not a union currently.
I actually just learned this.
Shout out to Paul who just told me this oddly enough.
(37:42):
Early film in that part of the world
actually was unionizing.
And then when Soviet Russia happened,
Stalin put an end to all of that.
So ironically, there's talk of trying to unionize people
who were at one point unionized before we were.
So I just heard our illustrious Iatzi president
(38:05):
talking a little bit about that.
And I think he was talking about the LA wildfires
while talking about unionizing labor in Europe,
which is kind of conflicting to talk about those two things
in the same, whatever.
But yeah, how long can they get away with the exploitation
(38:27):
before they have to pick up and go somewhere else?
And eventually, part of it's about the dollar
and how can I maximize my profits?
We all know that part.
But part of it's how many stuntmen can I throw at something
and it doesn't matter what happens to them.
There's that.
There's lack of guardrails or other safety issues
that could be going on.
(38:49):
Shoddy construction is already an issue in our industry.
Yeah, yeah.
Sometimes.
And I can only imagine what happens in a country like,
I don't know, Romania.
I'm just gonna throw out a random one.
Maybe they're solid.
Maybe they're awesome.
I don't know.
Yeah, there's probably PAs looking over your shoulder
the whole time.
Yeah.
At your monitors.
(39:10):
I'm just glad to learn that Joseph Stalin
is the gift that keeps on giving.
Yeah.
You know?
He's a real humanist, I guess.
Yeah, that guy.
He's helping me out even today.
Chris, actually, this is a good question for you.
Since PAs have been in the US,
how are they paid?
(39:30):
Peanuts.
Yeah.
It's just like, they'll buy the pound.
Circus peanuts?
But it would be the kilogram over there.
You gotta get a burger.
So.
But you have peanuts.
Are they shelled or not shelled?
I don't know, to be honest.
(39:51):
It's been a while since I've had a peanut.
To be honest, it's been a while since I was a PA in Bulgaria.
So the moral of the story,
make sure that you know the difference
between pounds and kilos.
Yeah.
That's it.
Before you accepted PA job elsewhere.
Yeah.
You might find you're getting a little short changed
(40:12):
in your peanuts.
You can't have that.
Yeah.
And then you gotta find a peanut exchange
and figure out what the peanut exchange rate is,
say from Bulgaria to, I don't know, Romania.
Can you bring them back with you?
Oh, probably not.
Is the other question.
Oh, definitely not.
You wouldn't want to import tax, all that stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
(40:33):
It's basically all they're eating too.
So, you know, they probably don't have a lot to bring home.
It's fair.
So.
I might be totally off base.
Maybe people are getting paid like crazy over there.
They're not.
They're not.
They're definitely not.
So the peanuts comment comes from,
I literally had a dream one time,
(40:54):
like on one of the first shows that I was staff on.
Yes, please tell us about your dream.
Can I talk about this and not get sued again?
It was on.
You had a role.
Yeah, I know.
I can't believe it.
Come in strong today.
Come on.
To field all these lawsuits with the many peanuts
that I made over the course of my career.
But it was on Memphis Beat.
(41:16):
Oh, yeah, all right.
The.
Delta blues.
You make more peanuts than any of us, by the way.
Yeah.
So the pay on that show for a PA was,
it was a background voucher.
It was 83.50 for 10.
Oh my God.
No, no, no, no, I'm sorry.
It was 101.50 for 10 or 12.
(41:38):
I think it might've been 12.
Anyway, so after taxes,
you basically got like 80 bucks a day.
And then also you wouldn't get paid.
Just it was processed like a regular background voucher.
So you wouldn't get paid for a month.
Oh my God.
And then you would get like 12 checks.
But I mean, like basically, you see you get like a thousand.
Was this like a low budget indie kind of situation?
(42:01):
That's a TV series.
On what, TBS?
On TBS, yeah.
And.
2008-ish?
Yeah, and eventually Sherman Shelton Jr.
found out about it and he put an end to it.
Shout out Sherman Shelton Jr.
Yeah, Sherman.
And, but before that, anyway, so this was going on.
So like, I literally was just kind of like,
(42:22):
I had a full-time gig on a show and I was like,
all right, cool, this is my career.
I'm trying to make this happen.
But like, I literally couldn't pay the bills.
And it was such a struggle to actually get paid.
You know, just be like, hey, can we just maybe, I mean, like,
I know everybody is waiting on this money,
but can the PAs get to like,
is there anything we can do to speed up the process?
(42:42):
Because PAs aren't in the union yet, for anyone who does not.
No, and I mean, it's another example of why unionizing.
This is why we need unions.
And so there was a whole bunch of pushback
and eventually there was a person on the show,
I won't say who, who said, hey man, you gotta back off.
You gotta stop.
Jason Statham.
(43:03):
And I was like, man, I don't really know if I can,
but I hear what you're saying.
That night I had a dream where the UPM was like, hey,
so listen, we're not gonna pay you in money,
but what we'll do is we'll pay you in peanuts.
And then you can take those peanuts
and you can sell them on the secondary market.
You know what I mean?
In bulk.
(43:23):
And it was an actual dream that I had
because I was that flabbergasted at the situation.
And it was just, this is what happens when the human techie
was just working it out in my mind.
It's like getting paid in crypto and it's not even Bitcoin.
It just was the thing.
I don't know, the last movie I worked on,
might as well have been peanuts, honestly.
Oh yes, actually same.
(43:45):
Cause I just did a, oh God,
I've already taken out my memory in this.
The studios are taking advantage of our desperation folks.
Yeah.
It's hard to stand strong when you can't eat.
Yeah, and you just reminded me of something too, Chris.
I can actually speak a little bit to the labor abuse
(44:06):
that goes on in Europe.
There's a company called Millennium,
and I think I'm open and safe to talk about them
cause they're tax evading.
So the head of that company,
there was a whistleblower that exposed that they were-
His name is Jed.
Yeah.
He's doing it right now.
Yeah, it's me, I'm doing it right now.
No, it was someone in their accounting department
(44:28):
that basically was like, they're tax evading.
And so then when IRS was coming after them,
they just picked up their entire operation
and left the United States
because the owner of the company is not American.
And now they're London-based and they're still making movies
such as I worked on Olympus has fallen.
And I later saw that there is a London has fallen.
(44:51):
And I was like, London has fallen.
When did they make?
Oh, that's where they went.
Okay, ha ha, figured it all out.
So even when they were here shooting in the US,
they used to do a lot of their second unit,
pick up stuff, stunt work in Bulgaria.
They loved Bulgarian stuntmen.
Yeah, sure.
(45:12):
And I've always envisioned all these hobbled stuntmen
that are just so medically mistreated and everything
that it's like they look like they're all war veterans
and they're really just stuntmen from bad movie making.
But yes, that was an abuse I learned about
a good 20 years ago almost.
(45:34):
And that's before all this outsourcing was happening.
So in some ways you can say they were ahead of the game.
But how progressive of them.
But yeah, Bulgaria specifically,
I think has been a target spot of cheap labor
and stuff for a while.
So, and now it's popular along with Hungary.
(45:56):
Hungary is big.
It's some other places.
Serbia is big.
Yeah, they just did an entire.
Rock.
How did this get made actually?
They did a crappy rom-com recently.
I can't remember the name of it,
but Paul Scheer revealed at the end, he was like,
if you guys had to guess where this movie was done.
And I think Manzoukas was actually like,
I don't know, Shreveport, Louisiana.
And he's like, good guess, but no, it's Bulgaria.
(46:19):
This entire American rom-com was done in Bulgaria.
Anyway, so yeah.
I don't know, call your local sender.
Shreveport, kinda.
Shreveport.
We've bashed Shreveport for having a large water tank.
The water quality.
Or did we promote the water tank?
(46:40):
Yes, we are promoting.
We did.
And I'm sure, and there were beakers involved.
And there were beakers involved, yeah.
It's the biggest testing of the water.
Yeah, a lot of bunts and flames anyway.
Okay, so normally this is where Zoe does her,
hold on, somebody's calling me right now.
Oh, hey, Zoe.
Here, I'm gonna put you up to the mic.
All right, here you go, guys.
(47:01):
Do you like what we're doing here?
Do you have thoughts, comments, questions?
Maybe you have an idea or suggestion
for topics you wanna hear about?
Well, you can find us on the Intrawebs.
You can email us at filmfolklorepodcast at gmail.com.
You can find us on the social medias,
Instagram, the Film Folklore Podcast.
(47:24):
We have a Facebook group called Film Folklore,
Twitter X, whatever you wanna call it, at The Film Folk.
And yeah, thanks for joining us today.
All right, thanks everybody.
Bye.
Bye.
Hello film friends, friends of film and everyone in between.
(00:14):
Welcome to the Film Folklore Podcast.
I am Jed Props and I am joined today by Chris A.D.
Hello.
Justin Sound.
Hi.
And our newest full-time member of the band, Heather Rae Costumes.
Hey there.
Boom, boom, boom.
Boom, boom, boom.
All right.
(00:35):
Heather Rae, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Excited to be here.
How have you been?
I've been, you know, like everyone else.
Like everybody else.
Yeah.
So just a real quick aside, if any listeners haven't done it yet,
please go check out our summer mini series we did last year,
where we did a deep dive and love letter to the Rocky and Creed franchise
(00:56):
called Yo Adrian.
And Heather Rae was awesome on that.
And we're excited to have you here.
So welcome aboard.
Well, thank you.
Happy to be here.
And Chris, we have some catching up to do with you.
I guess we're going to call this housekeeping, I guess.
So there's some questions that have cropped up early this season.
So you mind a little quick Q&A?
(01:18):
Let's do it.
OK.
So the first thing is, how is it that you play in two bands at the same time?
Have you seen the guy that has like the bass drum,
and then he's got the accordion, and then the monkey,
and he claps the cymbals?
Can't forget the monkey.
Can't.
An organ grinder?
Sure.
(01:38):
Is that the term?
Why not?
I mean, the monkey popped up visually in my head
before you even said monkey, so I knew where you were going with it.
I know exactly your band.
Yeah, so that's me.
We're terrible.
And when I say we, I mean, it's just me doing that with the monkey.
Oh, I thought the name of the band is We're Terrible.
That could be.
It could be.
(02:00):
The name, why not?
The next question we have is, who did you piss off exactly to end up in manure
not once, but three times?
God.
Probably God, whichever one you believe in.
All the gods.
All of the gods got together, and they're like, dude, we got to work.
(02:25):
Is it possible Marty McFly was involved?
Probably.
He's got a time machine, so it would make sense.
That does make sense.
We also only heard manure.
So can you elaborate on what kind of manure we're dealing with?
Are we talking like a fertilizer or just straight animal shit?
Like, which animal?
Was it human?
I mean, there's all different kinds of poop out there.
(02:45):
Why?
I'm not.
That's what I called.
You know, limiting it to just one.
I mean, there's whale poop.
You know, I mean, it just exists in the water.
But I mean, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
So a bucket of guano.
Sure, man.
So all of it, you know, all the poop.
OK.
Yeah.
Well, I'm glad we could clarify that for everybody.
(03:06):
And one last question, Chris.
Where's Zoe?
Oh, she is on the underwater adventure.
You know the people that got crushed on the submersible,
all the rich people?
Oh, yeah.
On the way to Titanic.
Yeah.
Well, they had a backup to that sub.
And they said that it was perfectly fine.
(03:29):
And so Zoe is, she's going to go look at the Titanic.
Which brings us to legendary lore time.
That's right.
We're talking today about the epic.
What a segue.
That was masterful.
This guy comes in.
And we want to talk about A-game.
So yeah, today we're going to talk about the epic big budget
blockbuster that is Titanic.
(03:50):
But first, because I can't help myself,
it's time for Find the Fake Movie Title.
Brr, brr, brr, brr.
So I wanted to go with the blockbuster theme here.
And so it was actually easier than I
thought to find obscure flops that were gigantic budgets.
So there's a disaster theme going on with these.
(04:12):
If that is any clue, we'll see.
So the first one is called, or Heather,
do you need to know rules or anything?
I mean, I'm a pretty smart girl.
I can probably pick it up.
But if you'd like to give me a rundown.
There's two real, one fake.
That's it.
I mean, the rundown wasn't for me,
but for our lovely listeners.
(04:32):
Sure.
Yeah.
They're probably tired of me doing this.
But the first one is Moonfall.
The second title is Mojave or the Sun.
And the third title is Hard Rain.
I feel like there was a movie called Moonfall.
(04:54):
There was.
Yeah, that was definitely a movie.
I've heard of that.
I mean, I don't know what it was about.
I did not see it, but it rings a bell.
So I'm going with Moonfall.
Well, no, you want to find the fake one.
Oh, the fake one.
So if you think that one's real.
See, you did need to rundown.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sorry, Zoe needs a reminder every single time.
This is not how you do it, people.
OK, so there was a Moonfall.
(05:16):
And what were the other two?
Mojave or the Sun and Hard Rain.
I'm going to go with Mojave and the Sun is the fake one.
OK.
Because I feel like there was a Hard Rain, too.
Or I might be thinking a song.
I don't know.
OK.
Mm.
Mm.
(05:36):
Mm.
Mm.
Mm.
Mm.
Mm.
I'm going to say Hard Rain.
You're going to go Hard Rain?
All right.
And Chris?
Manure.
Was that one of them?
That wasn't one of them?
No, it was butt stuff.
There's a
Manure Fall.
No, that's a real movie.
Yes.
There's Moonfall.
Yeah.
(05:57):
Moonfall, Mojave or the Sun, and Hard Rain.
I'm going to go with Mojave and the Sun.
OK.
The answer is Mojave or the Sun.
Justin staying consistent over there.
(06:20):
So yeah, I was like, guy, I'm getting a little too recent.
You'll probably will know these.
So Moon.
Wait, wait, wait.
I have a question.
Yes.
In Moonfall, did the moon actually fall?
Yes.
So it's a, it's a.
Halle Berry.
I let's see if I can look.
(06:40):
Yes, I believe Halle Berry is in it.
It's.
Oh, God.
Not a time to blink on his name.
Roland Emmerich movie.
Independence Day.
Oh, that guy.
That guy.
Yeah.
It's one of those you would think.
The not Michael Bay one.
Oh, that guy.
You would think Gerard Butler would be in it.
I don't think he is, but.
(07:00):
No, he was in Olympus has Fallen, I guess.
Not Olympus has Fallen, I'm trying to think of Geostorm.
Right, same concept.
Right.
So a mysterious force knocks the moon from its orbit
and sends it hurtling on a collision course towards Earth.
Mysterious force.
Do we ever find out what the mysterious force is?
Because if not, that's just lazy.
You know, this is also an episode of how did this get made.
(07:22):
And I still don't remember what they said.
So.
I missed that one.
I love that podcast.
5.5 IMDB, 35% on the tomato meter.
I had to start doing tomato meter
because Zoe kept asking.
Hard Rain, which I do remember, is from 1998.
It's Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater.
(07:43):
It is.
That's a dynamic duo right there.
This movie is amazing for all the wrong reasons.
The partner and nephew of an armored truck driver
tries to prevent $3 million from being taken by a gang
during a catastrophic flooding caused by a severe storm.
Wow, that's a lot going on there.
Yeah.
A fun footnote about both of these real movies.
(08:06):
If you include inflation, both of them
lost more than $100 million.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah, big time flops.
Another fun trivia about Hard Rain.
If you remember the original Daily Show with Craig Kilborn,
he had Christian Slater on promoting this movie.
I remember this.
And he was relentlessly taunting Christian Slater,
(08:30):
where he just kept going.
So we've had earthquakes.
We've had volcanoes.
We've had, and he goes, but now it's a hard rain.
So he said, and he pulls out a card,
and he starts going, I understand
there are some alternative titles for this movie.
Strong Precipitation, Heavy Downfall.
He just starts going down this list.
(08:50):
And Christian Slater, I remember he was just
nodding and taking it.
But yeah, it was not a good movie.
It's got to be hard to promote a movie that you know is garbage.
He definitely knew it was garbage.
You could tell.
And I have seen it once.
I remember jet skis inside of a school that was flooded.
(09:10):
That was one of the things I remember.
Yeah, lots of action that makes no sense.
Anywho, so great job, everyone, especially Justin.
And we will go on to Titanic.
What was Mojave and the Sun about?
Whatever y'all want it to be.
(09:30):
That's the movie we write.
Yeah, I was struggling for a fake title.
There's so many bad, bad big budget flops.
And there's so many I hadn't heard of.
I was writing down titles for later use.
And I think you're just putting words together now.
(09:51):
And that's what makes it more confusing,
because a lot of movie titles are just that.
It sounds deeper.
It sounds deep.
I would watch a movie called Mojave and the Sun
before I watched a movie called Hard Rain.
Let's be real.
I mean, most people would.
So we're going to get into the 1997 Titanic,
(10:14):
starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio,
amongst a host of others, directed by James Cameron.
Everybody knows this movie.
Are y'all ready to take a deep dive to the ocean floor
and back?
Lots of puns coming.
I'm as ready as I'll ever be.
Exactly.
All right, here we go.
I'm going to call this Titanic Tempers, Furors
Fatigue, and Unsolved Soup Crimes.
(10:35):
That is our title here.
I like it.
Yeah.
So before we get in any further research for today's episode,
comes from Cheat Sheet.com, The Guardian, my favorite go-to
collider, Hogg Global Engineering's website,
GlobalNews.com, Looper.com, Entertainment Weekly, LA Times,
and Vulture.
I think I just set a record on this one.
(10:58):
And possibly Wikipedia.
Possibly Wikipedia.
Heather may have her own notes from Wikipedia.
I always ask this question, have you seen this movie?
Everyone's seen this, right?
Yes.
I mean, Zoe revealed in a previous episode
that even she's seen this movie.
So it's a shame she's not here, because this
would be the first time that we've all collectively
(11:20):
seen the topical movie.
But she's giving me, she's texting real time info
from looking at the Titanic right now.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah, she says it's boring.
She's watching it right now?
She's at the bottom of the ocean looking at it.
She's on the whatever that submarine.
The Ocean Gate.
Ocean Gate.
Oh, right, right.
I thought she meant she was watching the movie.
(11:41):
Well, side by side, right?
She's watching the movie while the real thing's in front of her.
I think that's it, because you can't actually even see when.
Deep Sea Wi-Fi is killer.
It's really good.
I mean, it's for millionaires, that's why.
Right.
It's got to be good.
Or yeah, billionaires.
With a B, maybe.
Dead billionaires.
Anywho.
Only kind of good billionaires.
(12:03):
So all right, if you haven't seen Titanic for any weird reason
and somehow you've never heard of the true story,
I don't know what's wrong with you.
Go look it up.
It's basically the largest ship ever made, Sank.
And anything else to add to that, as far as the real story goes?
Giant ocean liner, early 1900s.
(12:26):
I mean, I have lots of Titanic info.
Yeah, we're going to get into it.
Yeah, we'll get there.
Yeah.
So I mean, like most of these movies,
I feel like we all know a little bit from behind the scenes.
It's hard to not when it's a movie of this scale.
And of course, once I start deep diving,
I just realize there's so much more.
(12:47):
And most projects have issues.
We all know that.
It's just the nature of the beast.
But something like Titanic has to come with some nutty stuff.
And of course, it does.
And so y'all buckle up, because it's coming.
So we're going to start with the general shooting of it.
The bulk of the movie was shot over six months
(13:08):
in a small seaside area of Mexico called Rosarito Beach.
They actually built a film studio
there to make the movie, which is pretty nuts.
Is that on the west coast, or is it in the Gulf of Mexico?
I'll give you a hint. It's called Baja Studios.
I don't know Mexico well enough.
West.
OK.
Perfect.
So let's see.
(13:31):
They shot all of the non-ship stuff, more or less.
Excuse me, in Nova Scotia.
And then all of the ship-related stuff was in Mexico, more or less.
The studios they built consisted of several sound stages,
several water tanks, with the largest water tank being
(13:53):
a 17 million gallon, what they call a horizon tank,
with 270 degrees of ocean visibility.
Fun trivia.
So how much land, like if it were land,
I know it's not land, but how much would be,
how would it be a mile, like an acre?
(14:16):
It's a fair question to ask.
It's hard to say, because we don't know the depth of the tank.
I don't need to know the depth.
I'm talking like square footage across the surface.
I can put it in this perspective.
The Titanic they built was a 9 10th scale.
It's mostly a steel frame with paneling for the major ship ship.
(14:38):
But that should give you a pretty good idea.
It was almost full size.
Fucking big.
So yes, it was fucking big.
All right, got it.
More water than your low flow toilet.
You definitely, if you have the two button option,
it was a two button.
Yeah.
You know, OK.
(14:59):
So this is a little bit of a fun trivia.
Because this water tank was deconstructed
after the production ended, do you
all want to take a wild guess where the current largest water
tank in the world is?
To the best of my knowledge, I wasn't
able to find anything that is different.
Vegas.
Shreveport, Louisiana.
(15:21):
Because it was built for the Coast Guard flop, The Guardian.
And the city wanted to keep it afterwards.
And so it's still in existence up there.
And at the time, it was the largest water tank
because it wasn't being torn down for any reason.
So to the best of my knowledge, it's
still standing as the largest water tank.
(15:43):
That is weird.
Filming water tank, I should say.
Which water was worse for you, the water in Mexico
or the water in Shreveport?
Shreveport.
OK.
Yeah, I have to go with Shreveport.
And I know that seemed like a flippant answer,
but I actually did a series of tests.
There were beakers involved.
Very good.
(16:03):
So yeah, when you take into account,
I also want to throw in, when you think about the prep,
design, build, tear down, all of that,
you're talking about a year start to finish.
So this was basically a year long project.
Money wise, what a gig.
So to start us with, we might get into some ear muff
(16:26):
situations, Chris.
Just giving you a little heads up.
OK, I'm scared.
But OK.
James Cameron, Jim Cameron, as he's
known to friends and colleagues, he already
had a reputation for going big before he tackled anything
the likes of Titanic or later Avatar.
In some ways, you have to mire the Cajones or Cajones,
(16:48):
if you're a Rocky V, on this guy because he had a little house
for you, Heather, eh?
I got it.
I caught it.
I caught it.
But if he never saw the word.
That's what I'm saying.
How did he?
Call back.
All right.
So he's never really given a shit about budgets
(17:09):
and I guess you can say in his defense,
it's worked well for him because he's
succeeded on all of his projects.
So that said, Titanic was originally
slated for about 138 shooting days
with a budget of about $110 million at the time.
And it finished up more like 160 days of shooting
and over $200 million.
(17:31):
I don't think I put it in here, but I
did read that essentially every minute of screen time
is $1 million if you're watching the movie.
Oh, wow.
That's wild.
I do want to put it into perspective.
It took $200 million to make the movie in 1997, right?
It cost $7.5, $7.5 million to build the ship in three years
(17:52):
in two days, the actual Titanic.
And it was $24.5 million in today's money.
In today's money.
In today's money.
So $200 million to make the movie.
There was $420,000 in cargo, which is about $15 million
today.
So even adding up that whole thing,
(18:14):
it doesn't even come close to how much it
cost to make this movie.
Yeah, but the movie didn't sink.
It didn't.
Good points.
Although.
Wordplay.
Although a little foreshadowing.
Can we?
You just said it all, man.
All right, that's a wrap, everybody.
That's a wrap.
I mean, personally, I disagree, but we'll get to that.
(18:35):
Also a little foreshadowing.
The 910th scale boat did sink to a certain degree,
but we'll get into that.
There is some irony coming.
So I didn't go deep into this, but I'm
pretty sure at least since Aliens to the Present,
he's been over budget on everything he's done.
(18:58):
So when it comes to his reputation,
he demands a lot of his AD staff and crew,
as we're about to learn.
And I've worked with some ADs that were on Titanic.
They did not have the greatest of things to say.
There's actually a picture I should have included in here,
(19:21):
but I didn't.
But they had told me that they're on several tiers,
each one on a different floor.
And he's basically yelling and screaming and barking orders
at everyone all simultaneously for all these moving parts
and pieces.
It didn't occur to me until I saw this picture.
He has a radio on his hip, and you're going, oh my god,
(19:43):
I think James Graham was on Channel One.
Oh my god, what a nightmare.
Oh my god.
That does not sound pleasant.
In addition to a bullhorn screaming at everybody.
Probably both.
He probably used the bullhorn and with a mic
at the end of the bullhorn, probably.
Did he have a lift that he was just going up and down?
That's a good question.
(20:04):
Because I need to go up to the seventh floor.
His own ego allows him to levitate.
Much like Jesus, the mythical chupacabra from Mexico.
Speaking of ego, there's even a nickname
for his on-set alter ego, Midge, which is Jim Backwards.
(20:25):
Ha ha ha.
So yeah, he's often been described
as a tyrant on set screaming, chewing out crew.
It's fairly common for people to quit on his movies.
Several people quit during the making of Titanic.
So let's see.
Chris, I don't know.
Do you want to speak to this at all?
(20:46):
Like, this is very abnormal.
I mean, no.
It just sounds fucking awful.
I mean, there was a show that I worked on one time
where the first AD, of course, was on Waukee,
but so was the director of photography and the director.
Oh, god.
And so those are probably the three most self-important people
(21:10):
that are on a film set.
And what they would do was you would shoot the scene.
You would get a take.
And then all three of them, because they're all
three of the most important people in their minds,
would talk on the Waukee talkie to one another,
but they would just step on each other.
That tracks.
(21:31):
And guys, I mean, I don't know how indefinitely
you get this, but when we say stepping on,
it means you're trying to use the Waukee talkie at the same time
as someone else.
And then it just comes out into this garbled sound,
which is horrible in everybody else's ear.
Like an audio train wreck.
Yeah.
It just sounds.
That's exactly what it sounds like.
(21:51):
Static and just it just hurts your ears.
Unpleasant trees.
Yeah.
It just hurts your ears.
Yeah, it's just terrible.
And for some reason, it's like twice the volume
as like a normal speaking voice, which, by the way,
this is then a side.
We need to just put a compressor on the Waukee talkie channels,
and then we would make trillions of dollars.
Did I just say that on here?
(22:12):
I didn't mean that.
I'm joking.
That's not a thing.
You're stupid.
Why are you getting at it?
We're all looking for side gigs.
This is your millions, baby.
But I guarantee you what was happening
was that something would happen.
It sounds like the guy.
I mean, look, whatever you think of his movies,
I mean, it sounds, you know, I'm sure that he is a tyrant.
(22:32):
I'm sure he's not a very nice guy when he's on set.
And I'm sure that, you know, they would get a take.
They would get in the can, and then immediately after,
he would get on the Waukee, and he would bark an order
and then not listen to the answer.
And I'm sure that there would be a very reasonable answer
to why something can't happen.
Like, hey, we got to do that again, because that sucked.
(22:55):
And it was like, hey, Jim, one of our divers just drowned,
so we have to like fish him out of the giant tank,
whatever it might be.
I've worked on shows like that, too.
And then I'm sure that he didn't hear the answer.
Are you?
Because he probably just turned it off,
and then, you know, barks in again,
probably stepping on whoever was speaking or whatever,
(23:15):
and then just barks the same order.
And like, that's probably just the tip of the iceberg, huh?
Nice.
For the disaster.
I mean, I'm sure it was just very hard on the crew.
Yeah, and maybe, I guess, we can say,
(23:36):
because there's not really a lot of situations
where a director typically would get on radio.
Like, I guess the example that I can think of
is actors in a car, and he wants to talk to the actors.
And so they'll leave a Waukee in the car for the director
to talk to the actors, which, that makes sense.
That's fairly standard.
(23:57):
But there really aren't a lot of moments
where usually you cringe when a DP or a director
is on radio, Channel One especially.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a bad deal, because they don't, like, we all have to,
everyone who's on Channel One, I mean,
we have to do it for our jobs.
(24:18):
And there's a certain etiquette and protocol,
and the way that you speak.
And since they don't know what that is,
and they don't adhere to any of the rules,
it's usually chaos.
Yeah, actually, I just remembered years ago,
Donnie FX was doing atmosphere smoke on a set,
and the DP was on Channel One.
(24:38):
And he was, I want to say Hungarian or something,
so he had this accent, but it was just like, Donnie,
more smoke, too much smoke, less smoke, Donnie,
a little bit more smoke.
As if it's a dial, you can just so quickly
change smoke or something like,
it just sounded like a nightmare for him,
because his DP is on Channel One, giving him smoke notes.
My God.
(24:58):
Anyway, so we're going to get a little bit more into Jim
or Midge as we get further along,
but I want to sidestep and talk about Kate Winslet
for a little bit, which Heather and I were talking a little bit
before recording, like, I like Kate Winslet,
(25:19):
but I was kind of indifferent as far as my opinion of her.
After doing this research, God bless Kate Winslet,
because my God, she's a trooper on this.
I love her.
A lot of actors, especially TV actors, no offense,
but they're kind of like bubble people.
Like, they bruise easily.
They all have weird allergy situations and stuff like that,
(25:46):
like a lot of sensitivities and everything.
She, in this shooting, goes through stuff like a stunt man,
I mean, like, as you're about to learn,
but I mean, kudos to her, because she went for it.
She also, thankfully for us, she has gone on record publicly
about a lot of the behind the scenes stuff,
which is why we know a lot of this stuff we're
(26:08):
about to talk about.
So we're going to see, as well, she
is largely responsible for the movie coming together
in the way that it did.
And nobody's worked with Kate Winslet, right?
I have not.
I wish Kate will come to New Orleans.
Come to New Orleans, Kate.
We have like two projects right now.
(26:30):
There's plenty of space.
So anyway, so she had a rough time, like I said.
She got injured multiple times.
She almost died a couple of times, no biggie.
And she just took it on the chin and tough through it,
which I just, again, I can't name a lot of actors
who would have put it up with stuff.
Well, this was her real breakout role, too.
(26:50):
So I mean.
Yeah, she took it with a smile, too.
I mean, that's the thing.
In fact, Heather, do you see a Los Angeles Times interview
there with her?
No.
If you see that, there's a little snippet for you to read.
OK.
Nope.
Kidding.
(27:10):
OK, why don't you tell us what it says, Jed?
I can.
I sure can.
Just imagine I sound like Heather A.
Why don't you read it?
Because you got it.
I'll tell you what you can do with it.
So in an interview with Los Angeles Times,
Kate Winslet called filming the story of the famed ocean
liner Ann Ordeal.
During the course of production, she nearly drowned,
(27:32):
got the flu, and was constantly cold
from being immersed in icy water.
She told the publication, I chipped a small bone
in my elbow.
At one point, I had deep bruises all over my arms.
I looked like a battered wife.
Winslet also slipped on a replica of the ship's deck,
where she got a gash on her right knee.
The tough shoot left her and other cast members exhausted.
(27:55):
Filming Titanic not only dragged on for months,
but the cast and crew also were putting in 19-hour days.
Kate Winslet didn't realize just how
demanding the process of making the movie
would be when she was cast in the role of the film's heroine.
Quote, the first day started at 5 AM and went on to 1 AM.
(28:16):
Winslet told the Los Angeles Times,
nothing could have prepared me for it.
She continued, there were quite a few 20-hour days,
and 2 thirds of it was night shooting because the Titanic
sank at night.
It was every man for himself on the set.
You had to ensure that you snatched some sleep
during the day with a black eye mask on.
(28:37):
Sometimes you'd find yourself having lunch at 2 AM
or breakfast at 4 PM.
It was very disorienting.
By the way, the crew was working through this entire time
without any face mask, eye masks, or anything like that.
Incidentally.
And also, I still wear, I have to wear an eye mask
every single night, even though my room
is basically blackout curtains.
(28:59):
And the reason for that was because on Homefront,
did you work on that?
I did not do Homefront.
I worked on that a little bit.
Yeah, it was a dog shit thing.
Shout out Homefront.
Do we get in trouble for that?
We'll find out.
Yeah.
Tune in next week.
Where Chris is getting sued.
Yeah.
(29:19):
And only if it's slander, which doesn't sound like,
I've never seen it.
Statham's here.
Oh, hey now.
And he's kicking Chris's ass, great.
Because it was eight weeks of night.
And basically after the third or fourth day
of just coming, you know, it's 9 AM
and you have to get some sleep, and I couldn't
because I'm seeing the sun, it's coming into my room.
(29:42):
I got an eye mask and now, I mean,
unless it's literally complete darkness,
I just can't sleep.
Well, you're such a princess, Chris.
I look like Jajah Gabor when I'm going to bed.
I mean, I'm gonna get the eye mask.
Does it have like lace on the edges of it?
Well, of course, I said Jajah Gabor.
It's satin.
And I'm wearing a nice nightie.
And I look radiant and resplendent in my eye mask.
(30:06):
Old habits die hard because Chris came over for dinner
a couple weeks ago and he ate his entire meal
over my trash can, which I was like, Chris, you can sit.
It's the only way I feel comfortable
is by eating over the trash can.
He insisted on a paper plate.
I was like, I have normal plates.
(30:28):
Don't want your damn-
You used a plate instead of a napkin?
Fancy.
Can you just grab the whole thing in tin foil
and let me eat it over a trash can plate?
That's how we all eat.
Isn't it?
No, just out of habit.
So Kate was also pretty candid when it came to
how old Midge treated the crew.
She speculated the whys, which there's definitely truth to,
(30:49):
but I think we can expand more from where she stopped politely.
Justin, do you see that?
Winslet said that while she and the film's other actors
didn't bear the brunt of James Cameron's reported temper,
she felt for the crew who did.
She believes Cameron didn't take his frustration out
on his actors for fear their performances
(31:10):
wouldn't remain up to par.
He's a nice guy, but the problem was that his vision
for the film was as clear as it was, she says.
He has a temper like you wouldn't believe.
As it was, the actors got off lightly.
I think Jim knew he couldn't shout at us
the way he did to his crew
because our performances would be no good.
She also shared Cameron was a really tough nut to crack.
(31:34):
There were times I genuinely, I was genuinely frightened of him.
However, I did like him, and I did come to understand him,
she stresses.
There were times he was understanding,
logistically it was very tough for a film for him,
as much as anyone.
By the end, I was existing on about four hours
of sleep per day, but Jim was existing on three.
(31:58):
Yeah, so I wanted for us to speak about this for a second
because there's a whole thing where the quote,
taking it out on part, that just gives me pause
and tickles my PTSD.
It's just that thing of like, it's an old school type
of thing that thankfully is seemingly going the way
(32:18):
of the dodo and dying off, but there's never a time
that you need to be screaming and yelling at people.
That never gets better work out of you.
It gets better work out of people.
We can say all that, but did y'all wanna say anything here
in regards to having a screamer of a director
or anything in that way?
(32:38):
I just never understand why the adults in the room
don't understand that they need to give us so little
for us to give them so much.
I never understand that.
Oh, and being talked to, like you're an absolute moron.
That kind of demeaning behavior, anyway.
(33:00):
But yeah, there is a changing culture.
I think it's good to mention that this behavior
should not have a place, whether it's our industry
or any industry, honestly.
I don't see a change in that much, honestly.
I can't say in the last movies I've done
in the last couple of years.
No, I mean, I have had, yeah, I have dealt with some people
(33:23):
that I would rather not.
I've had.
I mean, I've also dealt with lovely people.
Yeah, I've had an overall better,
I feel like it's dwindling if I'm judging by numbers.
The frequency of it seems less and less.
It could just be my personal luck of the draw.
I mean, there's that too.
I'd imagine there's some directors out there
that look up to this.
It's case by case, let's be real.
(33:45):
I mean, there's an Academy nominated director
in this upcoming Oscars that I have worked with
who is a screamer and a shithead to crew.
And now he's up for an Oscar and that kind of pisses me off.
Hint, it's a he, there you go.
But yeah, he made a PA cry.
People fell upward at a rapid rate in this industry.
(34:07):
Well, like I remember there was a PA
that was not over his shoulder in any way,
but she was, we had a ton of background.
We were in the casinos and it was very busy,
a lot of movement and she was just trying to find a monitor
because she had responsibilities.
And I wanna say she was maybe six-ish feet behind him.
(34:30):
And he realized that she was looking at his monitor.
And so he turned around and screamed at her
for looking at his monitor, made her cry.
That was such an unnecessary thing to do.
And yeah, now he's up for an Academy Award.
Cool. Interesting.
Yeah, it's like it's a musical project,
like a musician's involved.
Anyway, so you're gonna have to raise like
(34:53):
what Oscars were.
Oh, I'm gonna find out who this is.
Yeah.
As soon as we take a break.
Can't build a giant boat without making a few PAs cry.
Wasn't that the tagline on the poster for the-
Yeah, that was the first tagline they went with.
They decided to go something different.
(35:14):
Yeah. So I'm gonna start winding us down
because this is gonna be a two-parter, a two-parter.
But there's, already Chris has said it.
This is the tip of the iceberg.
(35:34):
But any thoughts or anything so far
where we are at this juncture,
we're gonna pick up with Winslet
when we get into our part two.
But any thoughts so far?
I mean, that this would have been miserable to work on.
Good money.
Miserable to work on.
I mean, this was back in the day
(35:55):
when really they did not give a fuck about safety.
I'll say the Mexico thing gives me pause.
I feel like it's in Mexico for a very good reason
that you can get away with a little bit more here and there.
Sure.
Yeah, there's no ocean there.
Ocean, yes, but Oshaw.
Yeah.
I'm sure there's-
(36:15):
Maybe there is, but-
Oh, I imagine there's something there in name
that probably has greased fingers a lot.
Well, I mean, I've gone-
Or at least in the middle of the time.
When I was in Morocco, I went to Atlas Studios
and took a little tour.
And first of all, nobody there, first of all.
It's in the middle of the desert.
Love it.
And secondly, I did get a,
I kinda hopped on a little two-person tour or whatever,
(36:39):
and we were walking around
and there was no guardrails, no say.
Somebody tried to climb up a very obviously
not meant to be climbed up space.
And the tour guide who was in charge of everything,
he's like, you might not wanna go up there.
It wasn't like, don't go up there.
Like that's, you gotta get out of it.
(36:59):
He was like, that's maybe not a good idea,
but have at it, dumb dumb.
Which I kinda respected actually, you know?
Which we don't need the same kind of insurance as you guys.
Exactly, there is no insurance.
Part of the outsourcing that we're experiencing right now
is it's not just that they can exploit labor,
(37:19):
but it's these other things as well.
Like Eastern Europe is very popular right now for shooting
and there's a lot of bad reasons for that.
And what's the union situation?
I know a lot of things are going.
There's not a union currently.
I actually just learned this.
Shout out to Paul who just told me this oddly enough.
(37:42):
Early film in that part of the world
actually was unionizing.
And then when Soviet Russia happened,
Stalin put an end to all of that.
So ironically, there's talk of trying to unionize people
who were at one point unionized before we were.
So I just heard our illustrious Iatzi president
(38:05):
talking a little bit about that.
And I think he was talking about the LA wildfires
while talking about unionizing labor in Europe,
which is kind of conflicting to talk about those two things
in the same, whatever.
But yeah, how long can they get away with the exploitation
(38:27):
before they have to pick up and go somewhere else?
And eventually, part of it's about the dollar
and how can I maximize my profits?
We all know that part.
But part of it's how many stuntmen can I throw at something
and it doesn't matter what happens to them.
There's that.
There's lack of guardrails or other safety issues
that could be going on.
(38:49):
Shoddy construction is already an issue in our industry.
Yeah, yeah.
Sometimes.
And I can only imagine what happens in a country like,
I don't know, Romania.
I'm just gonna throw out a random one.
Maybe they're solid.
Maybe they're awesome.
I don't know.
Yeah, there's probably PAs looking over your shoulder
the whole time.
Yeah.
At your monitors.
(39:10):
I'm just glad to learn that Joseph Stalin
is the gift that keeps on giving.
Yeah.
You know?
He's a real humanist, I guess.
Yeah, that guy.
He's helping me out even today.
Chris, actually, this is a good question for you.
Since PAs have been in the US,
how are they paid?
(39:30):
Peanuts.
Yeah.
It's just like, they'll buy the pound.
Circus peanuts?
But it would be the kilogram over there.
You gotta get a burger.
So.
But you have peanuts.
Are they shelled or not shelled?
I don't know, to be honest.
(39:51):
It's been a while since I've had a peanut.
To be honest, it's been a while since I was a PA in Bulgaria.
So the moral of the story,
make sure that you know the difference
between pounds and kilos.
Yeah.
That's it.
Before you accepted PA job elsewhere.
Yeah.
You might find you're getting a little short changed
(40:12):
in your peanuts.
You can't have that.
Yeah.
And then you gotta find a peanut exchange
and figure out what the peanut exchange rate is,
say from Bulgaria to, I don't know, Romania.
Can you bring them back with you?
Oh, probably not.
Is the other question.
Oh, definitely not.
You wouldn't want to import tax, all that stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
(40:33):
It's basically all they're eating too.
So, you know, they probably don't have a lot to bring home.
It's fair.
So.
I might be totally off base.
Maybe people are getting paid like crazy over there.
They're not.
They're not.
They're definitely not.
So the peanuts comment comes from,
I literally had a dream one time,
(40:54):
like on one of the first shows that I was staff on.
Yes, please tell us about your dream.
Can I talk about this and not get sued again?
It was on.
You had a role.
Yeah, I know.
I can't believe it.
Come in strong today.
Come on.
To field all these lawsuits with the many peanuts
that I made over the course of my career.
But it was on Memphis Beat.
(41:16):
Oh, yeah, all right.
The.
Delta blues.
You make more peanuts than any of us, by the way.
Yeah.
So the pay on that show for a PA was,
it was a background voucher.
It was 83.50 for 10.
Oh my God.
No, no, no, no, I'm sorry.
It was 101.50 for 10 or 12.
(41:38):
I think it might've been 12.
Anyway, so after taxes,
you basically got like 80 bucks a day.
And then also you wouldn't get paid.
Just it was processed like a regular background voucher.
So you wouldn't get paid for a month.
Oh my God.
And then you would get like 12 checks.
But I mean, like basically, you see you get like a thousand.
Was this like a low budget indie kind of situation?
(42:01):
That's a TV series.
On what, TBS?
On TBS, yeah.
And.
2008-ish?
Yeah, and eventually Sherman Shelton Jr.
found out about it and he put an end to it.
Shout out Sherman Shelton Jr.
Yeah, Sherman.
And, but before that, anyway, so this was going on.
So like, I literally was just kind of like,
(42:22):
I had a full-time gig on a show and I was like,
all right, cool, this is my career.
I'm trying to make this happen.
But like, I literally couldn't pay the bills.
And it was such a struggle to actually get paid.
You know, just be like, hey, can we just maybe, I mean, like,
I know everybody is waiting on this money,
but can the PAs get to like,
is there anything we can do to speed up the process?
(42:42):
Because PAs aren't in the union yet, for anyone who does not.
No, and I mean, it's another example of why unionizing.
This is why we need unions.
And so there was a whole bunch of pushback
and eventually there was a person on the show,
I won't say who, who said, hey man, you gotta back off.
You gotta stop.
Jason Statham.
(43:03):
And I was like, man, I don't really know if I can,
but I hear what you're saying.
That night I had a dream where the UPM was like, hey,
so listen, we're not gonna pay you in money,
but what we'll do is we'll pay you in peanuts.
And then you can take those peanuts
and you can sell them on the secondary market.
You know what I mean?
In bulk.
(43:23):
And it was an actual dream that I had
because I was that flabbergasted at the situation.
And it was just, this is what happens when the human techie
was just working it out in my mind.
It's like getting paid in crypto and it's not even Bitcoin.
It just was the thing.
I don't know, the last movie I worked on,
might as well have been peanuts, honestly.
Oh yes, actually same.
(43:45):
Cause I just did a, oh God,
I've already taken out my memory in this.
The studios are taking advantage of our desperation folks.
Yeah.
It's hard to stand strong when you can't eat.
Yeah, and you just reminded me of something too, Chris.
I can actually speak a little bit to the labor abuse
(44:06):
that goes on in Europe.
There's a company called Millennium,
and I think I'm open and safe to talk about them
cause they're tax evading.
So the head of that company,
there was a whistleblower that exposed that they were-
His name is Jed.
Yeah.
He's doing it right now.
Yeah, it's me, I'm doing it right now.
No, it was someone in their accounting department
(44:28):
that basically was like, they're tax evading.
And so then when IRS was coming after them,
they just picked up their entire operation
and left the United States
because the owner of the company is not American.
And now they're London-based and they're still making movies
such as I worked on Olympus has fallen.
And I later saw that there is a London has fallen.
(44:51):
And I was like, London has fallen.
When did they make?
Oh, that's where they went.
Okay, ha ha, figured it all out.
So even when they were here shooting in the US,
they used to do a lot of their second unit,
pick up stuff, stunt work in Bulgaria.
They loved Bulgarian stuntmen.
Yeah, sure.
(45:12):
And I've always envisioned all these hobbled stuntmen
that are just so medically mistreated and everything
that it's like they look like they're all war veterans
and they're really just stuntmen from bad movie making.
But yes, that was an abuse I learned about
a good 20 years ago almost.
(45:34):
And that's before all this outsourcing was happening.
So in some ways you can say they were ahead of the game.
But how progressive of them.
But yeah, Bulgaria specifically,
I think has been a target spot of cheap labor
and stuff for a while.
So, and now it's popular along with Hungary.
(45:56):
Hungary is big.
It's some other places.
Serbia is big.
Yeah, they just did an entire.
Rock.
How did this get made actually?
They did a crappy rom-com recently.
I can't remember the name of it,
but Paul Scheer revealed at the end, he was like,
if you guys had to guess where this movie was done.
And I think Manzoukas was actually like,
I don't know, Shreveport, Louisiana.
And he's like, good guess, but no, it's Bulgaria.
(46:19):
This entire American rom-com was done in Bulgaria.
Anyway, so yeah.
I don't know, call your local sender.
Shreveport, kinda.
Shreveport.
We've bashed Shreveport for having a large water tank.
The water quality.
Or did we promote the water tank?
(46:40):
Yes, we are promoting.
We did.
And I'm sure, and there were beakers involved.
And there were beakers involved, yeah.
It's the biggest testing of the water.
Yeah, a lot of bunts and flames anyway.
Okay, so normally this is where Zoe does her,
hold on, somebody's calling me right now.
Oh, hey, Zoe.
Here, I'm gonna put you up to the mic.
All right, here you go, guys.
(47:01):
Do you like what we're doing here?
Do you have thoughts, comments, questions?
Maybe you have an idea or suggestion
for topics you wanna hear about?
Well, you can find us on the Intrawebs.
You can email us at filmfolklorepodcast at gmail.com.
You can find us on the social medias,
Instagram, the Film Folklore Podcast.
(47:24):
We have a Facebook group called Film Folklore,
Twitter X, whatever you wanna call it, at The Film Folk.
And yeah, thanks for joining us today.
All right, thanks everybody.
Bye.
Bye.
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