June 1, 2024 • 60 mins
On this edition of Live from Hollywood…It’s Paranormal Tonight! host Dan Harary will interview his longtime friend and former client Peter Kuran, the Academy Award-winning creator of the documentary feature “Trinity and Beyond-The Atomic Bomb Movie,” narrated by William Shatner. Peter’s successful career creating photographic and visual effects began with the original Star Wars at age 19, and since that time he has worked on over 300 other theatrical motion pictures. In 2003, Kuran won an Academy Award® in the Scientific and Technical Achievement category for his RCI® Film Color Restoration Process, drawing on his film restoration expertise, a color matting technique he created on “Return of the Jedi,” and extensive knowledge of the photographic documentation of atmospheric nuclear testing 1945-1963. Peter is currently also a consultant for special projects at the U.S. government’s national laboratories.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:21):
From Hollywood. It's Paranormal Tonight.I'm March Summers and now here's your host,
Jan Harari. Hello everybody, thankyou for joining us once again Paranormal
Tonight. I am Dan Harari,broadcasting from my office in Beverly Hills,
California. I know the title sayslife from Hollywood, but you know Beverly
(00:46):
Hills, Hollywood. It's all thesame thing. Before I start my show
every week, I speak to myninety year old mother and she yells at
me, you have to promote yourbooks more. Why don't you promote your
books? So, mom, Iwill now promote my books for my mother.
Well done. This is my firstbook, Flirting with Fame. A
(01:07):
Hollywood publicist recalls fifty years of celebrityclose encounters. It's very funny, if
I say so myself. It's myHollywood career and lots of great photos of
me with Jerry Seinfeld and Steven Spielbergand Melbrooks and Alice Cooper and Hugh Hefner.
And it's a fun book. Checkit out Amazon, of course.
And then my other book, whichput me on the map actually in the
(01:30):
UFO community, and much to mysurprise, after they came. This is
my science fiction novel about benevolent alienswho come to Earth save mankind. Nick
Pope gave me the quote on thecover there. It says, a delightful
tale of wonder and hope. NickPope has become a good friend of mine.
Amazon dot Com. I hope mymom will leave me alone. You
won't yell at me this week whenshe sees this show. So that was
(01:53):
for you, Mom. Okay.One other thing, those of you who
are are into the UFO subject,a lot is happening this year, and
I am very fortunate to be involvedas the publicist and a co producer of
Contact in the Desert. Contact inthe Desert is the world's largest UFO convention
(02:15):
every year. This year is thetenth anniversary May thirtieth through June third,
Indian Wells, California. I willbe there, lots of wonderful people.
The top UFO researchers in the worldwill all be there that week, So
please come check it out. Lookfor me. I'll be all over the
place. Go to Contact in theDesert dot com. Contact in the Desert
(02:37):
dot com buy your tickets and we'reexpecting three to four thousand people It's going
to be a blast. I can'twait. That's going to be very cool.
Okay. My guest tonight is alongtime friend of mine. I haven't
seen him in a few years inperson, but he and I go back
more than thirty years, like me. Originally a native of New Jersey,
(02:58):
Peter Kuran's successful creating photographic and visualeffects for the entertainment industry in Hollywood began
with the original Star Wars when hewas only nineteen years old. Is that
not remarkable? Peter worked on StarWars when he was nineteen years old.
After completing work as an animation supervisorfor George Lucas's company ILM on the film
(03:21):
The Empire Strikes Back in nineteen eighty, Peter then launched his own company,
VCE VCE Visual Concept Entertainment, whichbecame a leader in Hollywood for visual effects
and image restoration. Peters worked onover three hundred motion pictures visual effects three
hundred motion pictures in addition to StarWars and The Empire Strikes Back. As
(03:45):
if those two weren't enough, heworked on both Adams Family films, all
three robocops, Men in Black,The Six Day, Thirteen Days of Beautiful
Mind, X Men two, Greblins, Grevlin's two, Ghostbusters two, and
both Starship, Starship Tree Cooper's films, to name just a few. Peter
was the writer, director, producer, and creator of the award winning documentary
(04:06):
film Trinity and Beyond, the AtomicBomb movie, which was narrated by William
Shatner. In fact, if Irecall correctly, I suggested to Peter in
the nineties, we should try toget William Shatner to be the narrator,
and that happened. That film wasreleased in nineteen ninety five, and it
featured original motion picture footage taken bythe US Department of Defense of atomic bomb
(04:30):
tests around the world during the forties, fifties, and sixties. In nineteen
ninety seven, Peter and I coproduced an event at the American Film Institute
in Hollywood called a Tribute to theAtomic Cinematographers, and we did that to
promote Peter's remarkable film Trinity and Beyond. That event reunited for the first time
(04:53):
the men who shot atomic bomb explosiontests around the world, and it was
covered by literally every major American mediaoutlet. It was the most successful pr
campaign I've ever died in my career. For the year career, we had
The New York Times, the LaTimes, People Magazine, NBC News,
CNN. It was in a remarkableevening in nineteen ninety seven, and that
(05:15):
event inspired Peter to create his nextfilm, which was called Atomic Filmmakers.
Peter's other original documentaries are Atomic Journeys, Nukes in Space, and Nuclear nine
to one one. He also publisheda book called how to Photograph an Atomic
Bomb, no relation to Two Youtwo rock band's music album called how to
(05:40):
Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in two thousandand three. I just thought of that
joke, by the way, Youtoe. In two thousand and three, Peter
went an Academy Award in the Scientificand Technical Achievement category for his RCI film
color restoration process. So he isan Academy Award winner. He's currently a
consultant for special projects at Livermore NationalLabs and at Los Alamos National Labs.
(06:06):
And again he's been a friend ofmine for over thirty years ago, Race,
Let's bring in my friend Peter Kurrianand there he is. Hey,
Dan, long long time. Ihaven't seen you in what twenty thirty years?
Now? Is that right? Inperson? Probably late nineties, early
two thousands. No, I cameout to your place. Was it Silbar?
(06:28):
Were you out in Silmar? Yeah? We were in She came out
there. Yeah, I came outthere once, but it's been quite a
while. Nice to see you lookgood man, you really do you know?
I just I just got a waterbills for Stolmar And it's like,
why it's like twelve hundred dollars.Why are you giving it to me?
And you left there? You leftthere years ago. Yeah, I haven't
been there in twenty years. Right, it's gone for twol owners after me.
(06:55):
Maybe you should pay it so thatyou know the IRS doesn't knock on
your door. All right, let'slet's jump at We have a lot to
do here. So I have myquestions, we have images, we have
a video. Let's rock and roll. So you know, you and I
both came out, Peter, Youand I both came out to Hollywood from
New Jersey. Tell us about yourchildhood, where you grew up, what
you did as a kid, Youknow what your hobbies and interests were.
(07:15):
And the other day you told meyou were an usher in a movie theater.
That's kind of prophetic. So tellme about your childhood. Well,
I grew up in a town calledFanwood, New Jersey, which was about
one square mile inside of Scotch Plains, New Jersey. And this is near
Plainfield, Westfield. You know,kind of northern, not complete northern,
(07:41):
you know, but it's it wasa small town. My mom actually wound
up being the mayor there for afew years. I never knew that.
That's cool. Yeah, I knowshe was. I assume they liked her,
they accepted her. Yeah, soyou know, I was just I
(08:05):
would say, what nine seven sevenor so actually when I was making,
you know, some of my firstmovies and how that. So Race,
let's show us slat number one pleaseand Peter, Yeah, you were making
movies as a child. Yeah,there we go. So what are we
looking at here? Okay, Well, this is a film I made called
(08:28):
Cub Scouts to the Moon. I'mthat's uh kidnamed Richard Bard who is fighting
with me. That's my cameo rolein the monster suit and wearing the sneakers.
We shot the moon out and uh, it was a perth near perth
Amboy, Okay, because there wasa big area that it had no vegetation,
(08:56):
so and it really didn't all verygood either. Was this eight millimeters
or super eight? No? Supereight? You can I left in the
sprocket, so you can I seethat super right? Okay? And then
did it have film synchronized or no, I mean synchronized? There wasn't.
I wasn't shooting sound. Did youmake many films when you were a kid?
(09:20):
Yeah? Probably, yeah, quitequite a few. Do you still
have Do you still have them?Yes? I actually still have them in
what what someday I'd hoped was goingto be my screening room, but it's
actually my film room because I stillhave a lot of film there to go
through. That's so cool. Soyou and Spielberg both made movies as kids.
(09:43):
Yeah, was a little more successful, a little bit more. But
this is not one of my preparedBut have you ever met Spielberg? I
met him for about a second.You know, I think I wasn't really
even you know, interested in meetinghim, but somebody brought him up to
(10:05):
me and said, hey, thisis Pete Ran. He goes oh,
and I goes, yeah, Idon't remember who I am. Right.
Of course, when I met him, I talked about his mother's kosher dairy
restaurant which is a block from myhouse because I used to eat it with
my mother. And I told Steveand I said, Steve, and your
mother makes the best blintzes in theplanet. And he goes, yeah,
you're right, she does. Sostevens Fielberg and I bought it because his
(10:26):
mother makes good blints You've had moreto talk about with him than I.
Yeah, I did. So youtell me you were an usher in a
movie theater. What were some ofthe films that you were ushering in?
Do you remember? Yeah? Sure, I think the first film was Towering
Inferno, Okay or not. Actually, Towering Inferno was a Christmas movie.
(10:50):
I remember that because they wanted StarWars. They wanted that to be a
Christmas movie too, and it didn'tmake it. So that's why it came
out in the summer. But Ithink Live and Let Die. And what's
funny is that even during the winter, you know, it's when there'd be
(11:13):
like three feet of snow on theground and people are still standing outside in
the snow, you know, waitingto get in. And you come out
to you come out to California andyou know, it's like sixty degrees and
people have to come inside to standin the lobby because it's cold out.
So it's such a different place here. So you you came to California when
(11:35):
you were eighteen, and I believeyou told me you went to cal Arts.
So tell us about cal Arts andhow did you meet George Lucas.
Well, Well, for one thing, George Lucas, you know, I
mean, he doesn't really have anythingto do with cal Arts. But I
went to cal Arts because at thetime I had a catalog AFI catalog,
and it said that showed all thestuff that cal Arts had, all of
(12:00):
equipment on the courses, everything thatthey taught. So I said, I
want to I want to go here, and came out and actually got on
a work study program at Disney becauseI figured that was a good place to
you know, to watch them doeffects on an ongoing basis. But you
know, uh, and they wereso you're eight you're eighteen, nineteen,
(12:22):
and you're I mean, yeah,and you're hanging out at Disney. Yeah,
for a while, until they gottired of me hanging out. They
said, hey, you know,maybe maybe you'd like to meet Jim Danforth
and Dave Allen and those guys andI go, yeah, and I go,
well, here's their number. Whydon't you go hang out at their
(12:43):
place? So I did that fora day. But that's money. That's
why race. Let's see a slidenumber two. So at some point up
Peter, there you are. Yes, So how did you meet George Lucas
well? First? I let's see, uh, I met Dykester first.
(13:03):
You know when I there was afriend at cal Art's and his name was
Mike Ross, and I think heI met him and he went to h
I think he did some work forPatty Freeling to Patty Freeling did the Pink
(13:26):
Panther and they were very close toI l m in Van Eyes, so
there was some interconnection with that,and he he thought, you know,
I might be interested in because youknow, I was probably the only person
at cal Arts at the time thatwas interested in, you know, motion
picture special effects, which seemed likea far out concept. So he said,
(13:50):
why don't you, why don't yougo check that out? So I
went to I set up an appointmentand I met Dykester. Dykester, I
showed him my real which broke likeflop flop sweat dripping down your faith?
Yeah, And I offered to worka week for free if he gave me
(14:11):
a chance, and he did so. You know, it was at the
time Lucas was still in uh inEngland shooting, so it was a while
before he came back. And thisis this shot which was used even on
a record album cover. You know, it's I can say that I'm actually
on a vinyl record cover that Iguess Lucasfilm put out with this picture on
(14:35):
it. That's awesome, p Peter. Was this picture taking at Ilm and
Van Nuys? Yes, yeah,so most people know il M of course
was up in northern California, butoriginally it was started at a what was
it an airplane hangar and at VanEys. No, it was near it
was near the Van Eys Airport airport. It was an industrial building. Okay,
(14:58):
okay, so yeah, now whois the gentleman we sort of see
a little bit of his face.Is that tekster? No, that's Adam
Beckett. He was actually in chargeof this department. This was the rotoscope
animation department and he was in chargeof that. And next to next to
(15:20):
George Lucas's grows, she was writinga lot of stuff down. Okay,
all right, race, let's gota number. Let's go to number three.
S. So, Peter, whatyou worked on Star Wars? What
exactly, well, what exactly didyou do? And I know you were
involved with C three po So tellus about all that. Well, this
(15:41):
is when I was hired. Theysaid, well, we can't pay you
a lot, but this is alearning experience. So I figured, okay,
well part of my learning experience.I had this Bullocks sixteen milimeter camera
and I set it up up,you know, like, hey, they
were going to shoot something out inthe parking lot, you know, some
(16:04):
miniature explosions and stuff. So Isaid, well, I uh, stopped
what I was doing and went downstairsshot, uh, you know, shot
some film. My job was asa rotoscope animator, and that's like somebody
who sits under an animation camera,draws out what you're projecting, makes the
(16:29):
lasers, light light effects, stufflike that. But I would come downstairs
and you know, and and shootstuff. And and it turned out that
that was some of the few piecesof footage they didn't actually have somebody shooting
behind the scenes footage on the originalStar Wars for the effects. So so
(16:52):
you did. So you did shootsome of that stuff. Yeah no,
And well at first they said,they said, well, we want that
film and just give it to usbecause you were worked for hire and so
anything you were doing here belongs tous. And I said, well that's
not that's not the way you putit in the first place. You know,
(17:14):
when I was there at the beginning, you said it was a learning
experience, and shooting this footage ispart of my learning experience. And they
said, okay, we'll give youa bunch of money for it. And
I said, fine, okay,I got you, all right, raised
number four? All right, sonow are you are you at the left
or you're in the suit? Aren'tyou? Now? I'm in the suit?
Yeah, all right, So tellus about like why are you in
(17:37):
that suit? There c three puwell among the animation chores and then shooting
you know, some behind the scenesstuff I was doing. I guess I
was skinny enough to fit in thesuit. So they and they wanted to
shoot this this test to see ifthey could make you know, the land
(18:02):
speeder that you know digitally you canmake the land speeder do anything. But
you know, you couldn't do itback then, you know, and somebody
had the idea of putting uh,the mirror, putting a beer underneath it
and reflecting the ground and then andthat made it look like it was floating.
Cool. So they stuck me inthe suit. They made me Mark
(18:26):
Hamill too. So hold so whywas Anthony Daniels in there? And and
you were because they shot the moviein England and the original movie in England.
And this was shot out at ElMirage, which was you know,
just south of north of Los Angeles. So this is this is shot after
(18:47):
the other footage. This is ohyeah, this is later. This is
later footage. Yes, okay,this is this is the laborious concept of
pickups editorial. Okay, got youraise number five please? All right?
So this is you with three Poat the Chinese Museum, your Chinese theater.
(19:07):
You're helping C three Po put hisfeet in the what what what do
you remember about that day? Uh? Well, I remember they I think
they paid me seventy five dollars.Usually it's usually what they after the movie
was over. After the movie wasdone, they laid everybody off. But
I think they actually wanted to tryto keep me working, you know,
(19:30):
because they like my h they likedmy attitude, so I you know,
so they'd hire me and bring mein and and you know, like help
Anthony Daniels when he because he wantedto be there in the suit. So,
uh was that was that him inthat suit that day? Yes?
Aren't? Aren't you glad that thatphoto exists? I mean that's a that's
(19:52):
an all time Hoby would classic photo. Man'd be nice if there was a
landscape version. I think it's Ithink it's awesome, just real, real
quick. So you you were involvedvery They did a lot of stuff after
after the movie, you know,and they would just tire me, yeah,
for promotions. But like you wereso involved with the film itself when
(20:15):
it was a global phenomenon. Whatdid you how did you feel? Were
you like, oh my god,I can't believe this. Did you have
a feeling that it was going tobe big? No? No, I
mean well, I mean I figuredit was big for me because it was
my first film, right right,But you probably just were as amazed as
everybody else, right, Yeah.I mean it was kind of luck,
(20:37):
you know that that that I hiton it then, you know, I
mean, this is the first filmin Hollywood is Star Wars. I mean
you could have you could have retiredand gone home at that point. All
right, Race, I don't thinkso, Race. Let's do number six.
So, Peter, you worked forGeorge Lucas's I l M on the
next film, Empire Strikes Back.What did you do for that film?
(21:00):
And there's you obviously in that redcircle. Uh, there's George's in front
of you. And the white lookslike a white sweater. So what did
you do on Empire? Well,they hired when they opened up in San
Rafel for the second picture, theyhired me up there for being the animation
rotoscope supervisor. So I, youknow, took on that challenge. And
(21:29):
you know, I was still doingsome work down in LA because I I
was still kind of smarting from beinglaid off the first time. So I
like to you know, set upother things going on, you know.
So I've been in that screening room, so you know, you probably know
this more recently. It was calledKerner Studios. Sure, yes, So
(21:51):
I was the publicist for several years. I was the publicist for Kerner Studios.
I've been inside that that theater withinthe last fifteen years, I was
inside that theater. Yeah, wow, I should show you the picture that
I have in there of I'm sittingin the background and there's Gary Kurtz,
George Lucas and Walter Cronkite. Ohwow, Well that's called the George Lucas
(22:15):
Theater. When it was Kerner,it's called the George Lucas Theater. Yeah,
all right, number seven race please, and now this is his frame
that you were involved with the Empireof the film. Tell us what we're
looking at. You wanted to dosomething, you wanted to see something,
So you tell us what we're lookingat. Here. That's the last that's
the speeder and it's going around thesnow walker. And I drew in the
(22:41):
animated in the lasso, so sothat's Andrew. Yeah, and and the
and the reflection or the shadows rightright, and and you know what I
thought, because I did. Idid a shadow for the rope too,
and I where I can see itthere, and I swear that that when
(23:03):
we did that, Lucas said dropthe shadow on the rope because you wouldn't
see a shadow on a rope,But I see it. So I don't
know why, I guess, man, So you andrew that rope coming out
of the Chaser and the Shadow ofIt underg you didn't do the shadow of
those elephant legs though, right?No? Okay no? And did you
(23:26):
do a lot of work on theEmpire? Well, I supervised the department,
So you have to understand that,you know a lot of the time,
I'm you know, either getting toldsomeone by somebody higher up or plotting
how work was going to get done. You know how many people were in
(23:47):
your department at that time to recall, not a lot. I mean there
was Sam and John and Ken tenfifteen twenty oh less than ten. Okay,
all right, Peter, it's twentyfive. After we've got to take
a break, pay a few bills, race, we'll rock and roll with
some messages. We'll come back withPeter Kran. We'll talk to him about
(24:08):
when he launched his company VCE.Right after these messages. Ay, UFO
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(24:33):
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(24:56):
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and I'd like to say thank youto all of our KU NX show hosts,
staff, listeners and viewers for makingus number one on paranormal talk radio.
(28:33):
And we're back with the Academy Awardwinner Peter Curran, my friend Race.
Let's bring Peter Beck in so Peter, uh, we have a lot
to do in the short time,so let's rock and roll here. After
you left I Elminady, you launchedthe VCE, your own visual effects company.
You did a lot of work fora lot of very big popular films.
Can you tell me one or justone or two that come to mind
(28:55):
that you are particularly proud of.Well. I like my work on RoboCop
because I got a single card onit at the end. But Adam's Family,
Adams Family Movies, you know,it's all of that stuff was done
before the digital so you know youhave to. You have to look at
it from the standpoint that you know, a lot of that work is done
(29:21):
and you don't know what it lookslike until you get it back the next
day. Yeah. I mean,you guys, you could look at it
right away. You know, youguys were the real artists. Man,
you guys were the real artists.You had to think creatively and invent new
methods and be innovative right on thefly. And I admire all you guys.
All of us dinosaurs have to sticktogether. Okay, so jump ahead
(29:44):
a little bit. You know,you and I met in the mid nineties.
You hired me to do the prfor your documentary film Trinity and Beyond,
the Atomic Bond movie, and obviouslyI wanted you on my show now
timing wise, because of course,Oppenheimer just one best picture. It's in
the news, and the atomic bombstuff is in the news quite a bit.
So Race, let's show Peter's trailerfor Trinity and Beyond, and then
(30:07):
after that, Peter, you andI will talk about it. So let's
show the trailer. Okay, youhave a grandstand seat here to one of
the most momentous events in the historyof science. M M. M.
(31:37):
Yeah, that's really great. Manlooks really really good. All right,
So we have quite a few stillframes. Let's put out the can I
just mention the music by WILLIAMS.Stromberg and John Morgan, because that's,
you know, that's what really makesthe film. You know, it's fabulous,
It's absolutely brilliant. It's wonderful.All right, Race, Let's put
up number eight and then I'll askPeter, how did you and be oncome
(32:00):
about? Why did you make it? And what's behind your fascination with atomic
bomb? You know, I haveto I have to credit the Barney movie
for getting me so disillusioned about workingon something that I didn't want to work
on and they didn't want to hireme anyway, and I felt like I
(32:21):
just wasted so much time going andtalking to those people that I felt,
if I'm going to spend time andwaste my money, I should do it
on something that might actually mean somethingsomeday. So I got interested in it
because you know, people would alwayssay, you know, I want to
see something I'd never seen before.And when I was fifteen, I went
(32:43):
on a YMCA studied MC vacation intoJapan, went to Hiroshimause I mean it,
you know, it affected me,and you know it's just been an
interesting subject. You know, henever told me that. That's very you
never told me that. Sorry aboutJapan. That makes a lot of sense.
(33:05):
I raised number nine. Please allright, So Peter, who what
are we looking at here? This? This is Edward Teller he was It
was one of my first interviews,and he is the you know, considered
the father of the hydrogen bomb,and very difficult to get in to get
a an interview with him. Uh. And Richard Rhoades, who wrote the
(33:30):
New York Times best selling book onthe atomic bomb, asked me how I
had how I had was able toget an interview with him because he wasn't
he couldn't get an interview. Isaid, well, you have to talk
to his secretary. You get herinterested in it, and he'll have to,
uh, he'll have to accommodate her. Did you try to get any
(33:51):
of Oppenheimer's relatives? No? No, I you know, I wasn't sure
at the time where I wanted to, you know, go with a film,
but it seemed yeah, it seemedlike you know, it was a
it was sort of a Frank Sheltonand Edward Teller sort of movie. So
(34:12):
I got you. Okay, wellthat's very cool picture you and Edward Taylor,
father of the hydrogen Bob. Allright, Race, let's do number
ten. Please? What do wegot here? That's me out in the
desert. Just you know, thatwas my Mitchell at the time, and
I was shooting stuff out at theTrinity site. We were shooting out at
(34:34):
the Trinity site, and you know, just I guess it's kind of hard
to prove that I was there,but yeah, yeah, you needed like
you need like a Trinity marker inthe background or something. This could have
been your back This could be.This could be your backyard, you know,
yeah, it could be. Itcould be. I believe Number eleven,
please, race, this is athis is a classic photo. Tell
(35:00):
what this is. This is fromI guess nineteen fifty eight Hard Tech two.
It was out in the Nevada desertand so they you know, they
were getting more protection, I guessfrom radiation. So you always want to
(35:24):
protect the film too, So youwant a government I'm sure you know place's
high priority on making sure the filmdoesn't get fogged. Yeah, how did
the film not get fogged? Imean, were there. Did they invent
a special case in those days forthe film? Actually they did for sure.
Well, there was one film stockcalled MF and that film stock was
(35:45):
very slow and it was kind ofkind of gamma ray resistant, but they'd
still have to put it in abox that had you know, like two
inches at least two inches of lead. I think that's around it. So
in color film you couldn't shoot closerthan about four thousand feet, so,
(36:06):
you know, because the radiation fieldis kind of contained within a certain area,
you know, and you know anyway, you know, so yeah,
with race, let's move on.I think number twelve, I think we're
right now, Great, there wego. Okay, look at this which
(36:31):
which test was Dispeter? Do youknow? Sure? This was a teapot
and met and that meant military effectstest. That was nineteen fifty five Operation
Teapot. But what you're seeing here, this is before digital. You know,
this is actual trick photography. Youknow, you can get a shot
(36:52):
like this by taking a very longtelephoto lens and getting really far back from
the people. And the longer thetelephoto lens, the more compressed the image
gets. So how far in reallife? How far with those men from
the from the blast. I wouldhope they're at least eight miles really eight
(37:15):
miles in between. Yeah, there'scertainly they're way more than two I can
think, because this picture makes itlook like about a couple of hundred yards
I know, I know, well, you know, they couldn't be they
couldn't be that close. I thinkthat's a remarkable in the open and stand
Out in the open a remarkable photo. That's great. Okay, erase number
(37:37):
thirteen please, Okay. So Peter, tell us about Lookout. This is
Lookout Mountain Studios. Tell us forpeople who don't know what that was.
Well, the Lookout in the studioswas this location up in the Hollywood Hills.
It wasn't on Lookout Mountain Avenue.It was on Wonderland Avenue. And
it's actually still there. It's thisbut it's a private resid and see now,
(38:00):
and it's right in the middle oflike personal home, private residents and
this is where they set up shopto make the documentary films that were made
by Lookout Mountain, you know,for the Department of Energy and the Department
of Defense during the fifties and sixties. Yeah, so what we did pr
(38:23):
we call this, you know,the Hollywood movie studio. No one ever
knew about it, was well yeah, I mean you know, I hadn't
known about it until I started workingon Trinity because I was keeping names.
I was collecting names of the peoplethat were on the slates, and some
guy and Warner Brothers at the time, and said, oh, we got
(38:43):
some one of those guys working forus here. Let me give you his
name, and I contacted him.And that's when, you know, they
all contacted, all of them,you know, they all got in touch
and I, you know, gotto be a friend of them. I
remember going there, I believe you. And I went there with CNN,
I think with Dennis Michael with CNN. I know I was inside. I
(39:05):
think Jared Leto the movie Star ownsit now, Is that right? That's
right, Jared, Yes, Jared, Jared. My daughter, My daughter
loves her. She has a crutchand all right. Race number fourteen,
another great picture. What is this? This is the cameraman cameraman in action,
as they would like to say.This is a blimp that was downed
(39:30):
I think by a test called Plumbbobsand the Navy brought Blimpse out to the
desert. I guess to check themand see what happens when they're hit by
a shockwave. So you know,so the shockwave brought that down. Yes,
not a bomb underneath directly underneath.Oh no, no, it would
(39:52):
have been in cinder. It wouldhave been in yes, right, It
shows you how smart I am.All right, race, who are we?
We had fourteen or fifteen that Ilost track? Okay, okay,
tell us about this one. Well, there's this is a test that was
done during It was a test calledPlumbbob John and they had five guys standing
(40:16):
below where an air to air nuclearmissile was going to explode. And the
photography, even though it says populationfive, there are actually six people there.
And the sixth person was George Yoshitaki, who would was shooting it with
his cameras. But there's the guyin the middle had you don't see it
(40:39):
here very well. But he hada microphone. And I've been looking for
the tape because because he actually wasrecording sound at the time, and I
actually I eventually found the tape andit was on it was on eBay.
Really, that's where you got it. That's great, Yeah, it was
(41:00):
you know on eBay and I wasable to, you know, take it
and sync up parts of what theywere saying. So that's awesome, that's
great. All right, sixteen Race, my brother sixteen Okay, this is
Peter. What is this. Thisis a shot of the fireball from upshot,
not hole Grabel. Grabel was theatomic cannon. That was that shot
(41:24):
a shot a nuclear shell and itexploded. Now, all that little stuff
down at the bottom are like tanksand jeeps and cars. You know.
Those little things are all vehicles.And there's like a little chip that you
(41:45):
see just below the fireball, andthat's the shockwave having bounced off the ground
and it's bouncing back up and we'lleventually go back up through the shockwave.
The little vehicles look like little tacotoys, look a lot smaller than that.
Yeah, amazing photo. All right, seventeen Race, all right,
so look at this. I havea little I have listen. I have
(42:07):
to pr myself so everyone. Iwas the publicist for Trinity and beyond.
Peter gave me that honor, andhe gave me a credit publicist, Dana
Rorri. There it is. Ihaven't seen that in almost thirty years.
I found that and then Peter madeit look better. But thank you for
giving me a credit. I've onlyhad five or six in my whole forty
year career. That's one of them. And you spelled my name right,
(42:30):
So that's why that's a really particularYou know, my mother is very happy
that I got a credit. Youhave a credit in a movie. Oh
my god, I really appreciate that. Bro. All right, Race,
let's take that off the screen andthen just have Peter. So, Peter,
you know, Trinity was very successful. You want awards a chute all
over the world. Do you thinkthat altered your career or it was a
(42:52):
pretty big, you know project.How do you feel about Trinity where it
took you in the future. Iwas actually quite pleased that I do consulting
to the National Labs. I didn'tI didn't go looking for the job.
(43:15):
You know, it basically found mebecause I had already done so much on
it and I've kind of become somewhatof an expert on you know, the
photography. So right, I likeworking for these people because it's a lot
less stressful than working on movies.Great, I know, I know you've
(43:37):
said that. So you work forLivermoore in Los Alamos Labs. And you
tell me just earlier today that whenyou've been out in Nevada, I think
you said something about area fifty oneand tell us that we have to ask
I have to ask you about areafifty one and UFO is what's your well,
you know what I was your pigeonon that well. I've been meaning
(43:57):
also to mention, you know,not that that I have an interest in
the Atomic Testing Museum, but theydo UFO. In fact, it seems
like, you know Area fifty onein UFO, stuff for the National or
for the Atomic Testing Museum is morepopular than atomic bomb stuff. But I
was out in I was out inthe Nevada Desert, Nevada test site,
(44:22):
and I not like I go thereall the time. I was out there
once when I was working on anotherdocumentary. And you can stand over.
You can stand over the crater,the Sedan crater, which is the result
is a huge crater, which isthe result of one hundred and four megaton,
not one hundred and four, onehundred of ar Kelton test really blew
(44:46):
up a big hole in the desert. But you can see from there,
you can see area fifty one,and I remember we were there and he
said, oh, yeah, that'sthe it's area fifty one. And I
just remember seeing a FedEx truck drivingtowards it. So you didn't see anything,
(45:06):
You didn't see anything good up inthe sky. There no, But
you know I can understand that.You know, if I was living next
to the Nevada test side, Iwould be concerned. They're all you see,
all those areas are numbered, sowhen it says area fifty one,
it's just over on the side ofthe Nevada Test site, which is a
bunch of other areas. And what'syour opinion about UFOs and extraterrestrial life?
(45:30):
What what just personal opinion. Idon't see why they now I'm not a
UFO person person, but I mean, you know, I I like,
you know, I I one ofthe things that I'm learning, you know,
as I as I work on theatomic bomb. You know, there's
(45:54):
so much physics that goes on thatdon't make sense. So you know,
I mean, like, for instance, a photon, a photon when what
we see is the result of photonshitting objects, you know, and that's
how we that's how we see light, and a photon can turn into a
(46:15):
wave and it can be you know, and it can be solid you know
it. You know, when youget down on that level, there's all
sorts of weird stuff that happens.And I think you know, any group
that's been you know, that's masteredit before us could certainly, you know,
can can certainly travel through space andtime. I would think, you
(46:37):
know, to any where they want, you know, if they're that advanced.
So but I'm not a I'm nota UFO guy. No, no,
I know, I know you shouldcome to Contact in the desert and
hang out with me, because Iliterally I know the top people in the
world. They're my friends. Doall right, we've a had a little
bit. In nineteen ninety seven,you and I did a very special event
(46:58):
at the American Film Institute to promoteTrinity and Beyond, and you, to
your credit, you reunited these elderlyThey were all men, elderly men cinematographers
who shot atomic bomb footage around theworld the forties, fifties, sixties,
I think even the seventies, maybeearly seventies. Well no, no,
no, no, no no,they did a lot. The last atmosphere,
(47:22):
well, okay, the last atmospheretest was finished, was done in
like nineteen sixty two, maybe sixtythree, you know, which which whatever
you count as an atmospheric test.But I would say that, you know,
in nineteen ninety two was the lastunderground test we did, so you
know, by then they you know, underground tests don't really look like that's
(47:45):
right. So the cinematographers we gatheredwere really the forties, fifties, very
very early sixties. Yeah, theymoved on to the Vietnam War, I
think, right, Okay, sowe reunited them for the first time.
We did an event at AFI.We got tons and tons of I mean,
every major media outlet was there.You and I had a great time.
Race can we see number eighteen please? I remember the thing that you
(48:10):
had said. You know, youtook me outside and looked at all of
the press that was there, andyou said, look at this, look
at this, get a look atthis because you'll never see it again.
Hey, I've never seen it again, and I'm a publicist. Yeah,
yeah, Peter, that was remarkableevening. So here's some of the people.
(48:31):
I mean, these are people intheir seventies and eighties. God bless
them. These were one I metall these people, they were terrific,
and you know, you know,it was really a shame. You know,
it's like if you know AFI,you know, it's up on a
hill. Yeah, of course,and all of the spaces near the top
(48:52):
of the hill wound up getting occupiedby all the media. The part these
guys had to park at the bottomof the walk I worked at. I
worked at a FI for two years. I know that hill man. Yeah,
yeah, that's well listen to whatcan we do? But that was
really cool. Race number nineteen.Please all right, Peter, there's you.
(49:14):
It's a little hard to see,but you're in at the podium and
you're doing a Q and A withsome of these legendary cinematographers. What what
do you What do you remember aboutthat roundtable right there? Well, the
guy in the checker outfit is DougWood, and he was kind of like
the mastermind of you know, peoplepeople contacted him. And next to him
(49:37):
is Jack Cannon. And Jack Cannon, by the way, was one of
the photographers on the Atomic Cannon.So oh, that's funny. They probably
picked it because at the yeah,I know, and next to him I
think is Pat Bradley and Peter Wilson. So, you know, I think
(50:01):
they'd all pretty much retired at thispoint. When I asked him, if
you know you wanted to get togetherand you know, have this, I
mean I considered it like a wrapparty. You know, when you finish,
you finish a movie, you finisha movie, and it's like I
had these guys' names and I wantedto you know, I wanted to give
(50:22):
him a wrap party. Well itwas like thirty five years delayed, right,
thirty five years delayed wrap I saythat was we both met these guys
very nice, Their wives were veryvery sweet. Race number twenty one,
okay, so I mean that's akiller. How come you're not in that
(50:42):
picture, Peter, I'm not inthat picture, not one of them.
You should you should you gathered them. You should have been right in the
middle there. I might have beenin one of the pictures. You know,
I'm looking for them. You knowthey've This was so long ago when
some of these pictures came off ofa camera that used a three and a
quarter inch floppy. You know what, I I to blow my own horn.
(51:05):
I think I created this picture.In other words, I think I
gathered them and said, hey,everyone, we need a PR photoga.
I think I put them up there, but yeah, no, I probably
did. I should have. Ishould have shoved you, Peter. I
should have shoved you in them,and you should have been right in the
middle there. Yeah, what goingto all right? Next one? All
right, so this is period.This is you and me, And these
(51:28):
are two two of my very dearfriends. They worked for me at the
time. They're both very excellent publicists. My friend Heather Burguette is in white.
My friend Page Parsons is in theblack jacket. They both have their
own PR firms. They worked forme in the nineties and they moved on
and we're still friends. We stillsee each other every so often. And
that you wanted this picture because Ilook, you look someone someone said you
(51:52):
look like a serial killer, butI said, you know, I said,
I don't care. I want somePR for myself. So this,
this proves that Peter and I workedtogether at the a FI that night's I
wanted that picture. And they havethe wall of photos behind us. You
could tell there's a couple of themthere. Yeah, all right, Race,
(52:12):
we can take that one down.Oh oh well you want Yeah,
you want to jump to this isthat is that the next one? Yeah?
Yeah, okay, So let meask you the question. All right,
So you created a RCI color restorationprocess, and you want you won
an Academy award, Scientific Academy Award. Tell us what we're looking at and
explain how you came up with this. Well, for one thing, you're
(52:35):
looking at a picture of Werner vonBraun, the German scientist who invented the
V one and the V two.He got a he got a pretty good
deal from the Americans, you know, and he invented like the Redstone rocket
and and some other he was hewas big in the in the missile delivery.
(52:59):
And this is on Johnson Island.And basically what happened was the negative
had faded and when the negative page, you have this positive crossover, which
means it's got blue shadows and yellowhighlights. So then I had come up
with this idea where you can takeyou can make a yellow mask and A
(53:24):
and an ip with a with blueshadows and put them together and it takes
out the problem. It gives youa good color. I actually came up
with this idea when I was thesame concept when I was working on Return
of the Jedi, and I didthese light lightsabers out in the desert,
(53:46):
and when you're out in the desert, it's hard to get color, you
know, not now, but thiswas back in the days when you had
optical printers to deal with, andyou know, the colors would would fate,
would fade away. So I cameup with this idea of adding color
masks and uh, and that's basicallyhow that works. So you used this
(54:12):
process, Peter, for the atomicfilm footage that was languishing in archives for
decades and you managed to get permissionto restore it and make it look beautiful,
right, And yeah, I meanbasically at the time. Uh.
And the uh, the place whereI had a lot of work was with
(54:36):
this place called DITRIACH, which isthe Defense Threat Reduction Information and Analysis Center.
And like doctor Bayern Risfit, theywere Cherry Lewis and some other people
who worked there. They were interestedin what I was, what I was
doing, and they had a lotof film and they had said, you
(54:57):
know, during not every year,you know, but some of the years,
like fifty six, nineteen fifty six, fifty seven, fifty eight,
the color on the negatives were fadingbad and they asked me if if there
was something I could do about it, and I wasn't really in the restoration
business at the time, so Iyou know, I was thinking kind of
(55:17):
outside the box, you know.Yeah, optical printing. Yeah, and
you get it won an Academy Awardfor it. Yeah, I guess it's
probably the last photochemical Academy Award everdished out. That's pretty cool. Before
we read that at a time,please tell me what you thought of the
movie, Oppenheimer. No, youknow what, it's good that that was
(55:45):
Oppenheimer was able to generate the interestand best Picture. I mean, I
have issues with it, especially whenthe bomb blows up. I think some
of the most fascinating parts of thenuclear explosion is probably within the first few
(56:05):
microseconds. And you know, theydidn't really they didn't really go into all
of those effects that happened, youknow. But I mean, as far
as I'm sorry there were it waskind of loud. The movie is kind
of loud. But look, Iyou know, I more more power to
them being making it, to makingit and making it an Academy Award winning
(56:31):
program. Yeah, it's too badChris Nolan didn't reach out to you.
I mean you you are the atomicbomb Garu of film. I mean,
you know, you know there,you know, things that could look really
cool or like just setting off littlecaps underwater. You know, they make
these bubbles and they could have youknow, he doesn't want to use digital
but you know, regardless of thefact that they did. Yeah. Really,
(56:55):
so what's what he got going on? What's next to Peter Kurran in
next couple of hours? What areyou? What're you doing now? Well?
I forgot to mention I did makeanother documentary called The Neutron Bomb,
which of course, of course youdid. I forgot to tell you.
Okay, so we'll add that toyour repertoire, your reputation. You can
(57:17):
you can each out and find that, you know, go to our Adam
Central YouTube show or YouTube channel orAdam Central dot com. You know a
T A T O M at Tomcentraldot com. Right at Tom central dot
com. I put up you know, lots of atomic bomb stuff and I
(57:37):
work on it to make it,you know, make it look pristine.
And you know, yeah, it'snever looked it never looke didn't look that
good on day one when they shotit. I mean, you restored these
historic films. They chronicle the historyof this weapon. And like you said
at the a FI you said,if if we don't preserve things like this,
(57:59):
you know, history, we willforget. Yeah. This era of
time, the forties fifty sixties wasa very historic era. We have thirties
to fifty seconds. Thank you,Peter. It's great to see you.
Man. This went really fast.We could probably have done another hour.
Thank you very much. How couldpeople get if someone wants to write to
you, how should they reach you? Well, I have an email address.
(58:23):
Well is it on atomcentral dot com? Yeah, look, go to
Adam Central dot com, okay Atoand Adam central dot com. You got
Peter Kuran. If you're in tIMDb, check him out. He has
an incredible resume. You see,the biggest some of the biggest hits in
Hollywood history went through Peter's hands.I didn't realize you worked on Return of
(58:45):
the Jedi. That was after youhad your own company. Yes, and
you know what I worked on another. I worked on a total of about
seventeen films for ILM Lucasfilm. Youknow, I only worked there on the
first two. But then after havingmy own company up and up for a
(59:05):
while they were giving me work becauseI was good at optical printing. Yeah,
and George Lucas obviously like you.Thank you very much. Peter Couran,
I appreciate it. At om attomcentral dot com everything about Peter for
me, Dan harariauthor dot com.Also, I'm the head of the Hollywood
Disclosure Alliance, so it's Hollywood DisclosureAlliance dot org. Please write to me.
(59:29):
I want to hear from you.And if you're into UFOs, please
go to Contact in the Desert dotcom. Get your tickets. They're going
fast, but it'll be the bestUFO conference in the history of the world.
Thank you very much. Next weekmy guests will be Katie Page,
longtime experiencer out of Colorado, friendof mine, and Katie Page a week
from tonight on Live from Hollywood.It's Paranormal Tonight. Have a good week
(59:52):
everyone. Thank you for watching andlistening. I appreciate it. Thank you,
Bye bye Stag
From Hollywood. It's Paranormal Tonight.I'm March Summers and now here's your host,
Jan Harari. Hello everybody, thankyou for joining us once again Paranormal
Tonight. I am Dan Harari,broadcasting from my office in Beverly Hills,
California. I know the title sayslife from Hollywood, but you know Beverly
(00:46):
Hills, Hollywood. It's all thesame thing. Before I start my show
every week, I speak to myninety year old mother and she yells at
me, you have to promote yourbooks more. Why don't you promote your
books? So, mom, Iwill now promote my books for my mother.
Well done. This is my firstbook, Flirting with Fame. A
(01:07):
Hollywood publicist recalls fifty years of celebrityclose encounters. It's very funny, if
I say so myself. It's myHollywood career and lots of great photos of
me with Jerry Seinfeld and Steven Spielbergand Melbrooks and Alice Cooper and Hugh Hefner.
And it's a fun book. Checkit out Amazon, of course.
And then my other book, whichput me on the map actually in the
(01:30):
UFO community, and much to mysurprise, after they came. This is
my science fiction novel about benevolent alienswho come to Earth save mankind. Nick
Pope gave me the quote on thecover there. It says, a delightful
tale of wonder and hope. NickPope has become a good friend of mine.
Amazon dot Com. I hope mymom will leave me alone. You
won't yell at me this week whenshe sees this show. So that was
(01:53):
for you, Mom. Okay.One other thing, those of you who
are are into the UFO subject,a lot is happening this year, and
I am very fortunate to be involvedas the publicist and a co producer of
Contact in the Desert. Contact inthe Desert is the world's largest UFO convention
(02:15):
every year. This year is thetenth anniversary May thirtieth through June third,
Indian Wells, California. I willbe there, lots of wonderful people.
The top UFO researchers in the worldwill all be there that week, So
please come check it out. Lookfor me. I'll be all over the
place. Go to Contact in theDesert dot com. Contact in the Desert
(02:37):
dot com buy your tickets and we'reexpecting three to four thousand people It's going
to be a blast. I can'twait. That's going to be very cool.
Okay. My guest tonight is alongtime friend of mine. I haven't
seen him in a few years inperson, but he and I go back
more than thirty years, like me. Originally a native of New Jersey,
(02:58):
Peter Kuran's successful creating photographic and visualeffects for the entertainment industry in Hollywood began
with the original Star Wars when hewas only nineteen years old. Is that
not remarkable? Peter worked on StarWars when he was nineteen years old.
After completing work as an animation supervisorfor George Lucas's company ILM on the film
(03:21):
The Empire Strikes Back in nineteen eighty, Peter then launched his own company,
VCE VCE Visual Concept Entertainment, whichbecame a leader in Hollywood for visual effects
and image restoration. Peters worked onover three hundred motion pictures visual effects three
hundred motion pictures in addition to StarWars and The Empire Strikes Back. As
(03:45):
if those two weren't enough, heworked on both Adams Family films, all
three robocops, Men in Black,The Six Day, Thirteen Days of Beautiful
Mind, X Men two, Greblins, Grevlin's two, Ghostbusters two, and
both Starship, Starship Tree Cooper's films, to name just a few. Peter
was the writer, director, producer, and creator of the award winning documentary
(04:06):
film Trinity and Beyond, the AtomicBomb movie, which was narrated by William
Shatner. In fact, if Irecall correctly, I suggested to Peter in
the nineties, we should try toget William Shatner to be the narrator,
and that happened. That film wasreleased in nineteen ninety five, and it
featured original motion picture footage taken bythe US Department of Defense of atomic bomb
(04:30):
tests around the world during the forties, fifties, and sixties. In nineteen
ninety seven, Peter and I coproduced an event at the American Film Institute
in Hollywood called a Tribute to theAtomic Cinematographers, and we did that to
promote Peter's remarkable film Trinity and Beyond. That event reunited for the first time
(04:53):
the men who shot atomic bomb explosiontests around the world, and it was
covered by literally every major American mediaoutlet. It was the most successful pr
campaign I've ever died in my career. For the year career, we had
The New York Times, the LaTimes, People Magazine, NBC News,
CNN. It was in a remarkableevening in nineteen ninety seven, and that
(05:15):
event inspired Peter to create his nextfilm, which was called Atomic Filmmakers.
Peter's other original documentaries are Atomic Journeys, Nukes in Space, and Nuclear nine
to one one. He also publisheda book called how to Photograph an Atomic
Bomb, no relation to Two Youtwo rock band's music album called how to
(05:40):
Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in two thousandand three. I just thought of that
joke, by the way, Youtoe. In two thousand and three, Peter
went an Academy Award in the Scientificand Technical Achievement category for his RCI film
color restoration process. So he isan Academy Award winner. He's currently a
consultant for special projects at Livermore NationalLabs and at Los Alamos National Labs.
(06:06):
And again he's been a friend ofmine for over thirty years ago, Race,
Let's bring in my friend Peter Kurrianand there he is. Hey,
Dan, long long time. Ihaven't seen you in what twenty thirty years?
Now? Is that right? Inperson? Probably late nineties, early
two thousands. No, I cameout to your place. Was it Silbar?
(06:28):
Were you out in Silmar? Yeah? We were in She came out
there. Yeah, I came outthere once, but it's been quite a
while. Nice to see you lookgood man, you really do you know?
I just I just got a waterbills for Stolmar And it's like,
why it's like twelve hundred dollars.Why are you giving it to me?
And you left there? You leftthere years ago. Yeah, I haven't
been there in twenty years. Right, it's gone for twol owners after me.
(06:55):
Maybe you should pay it so thatyou know the IRS doesn't knock on
your door. All right, let'slet's jump at We have a lot to
do here. So I have myquestions, we have images, we have
a video. Let's rock and roll. So you know, you and I
both came out, Peter, Youand I both came out to Hollywood from
New Jersey. Tell us about yourchildhood, where you grew up, what
you did as a kid, Youknow what your hobbies and interests were.
(07:15):
And the other day you told meyou were an usher in a movie theater.
That's kind of prophetic. So tellme about your childhood. Well,
I grew up in a town calledFanwood, New Jersey, which was about
one square mile inside of Scotch Plains, New Jersey. And this is near
Plainfield, Westfield. You know,kind of northern, not complete northern,
(07:41):
you know, but it's it wasa small town. My mom actually wound
up being the mayor there for afew years. I never knew that.
That's cool. Yeah, I knowshe was. I assume they liked her,
they accepted her. Yeah, soyou know, I was just I
(08:05):
would say, what nine seven sevenor so actually when I was making,
you know, some of my firstmovies and how that. So Race,
let's show us slat number one pleaseand Peter, Yeah, you were making
movies as a child. Yeah,there we go. So what are we
looking at here? Okay, Well, this is a film I made called
(08:28):
Cub Scouts to the Moon. I'mthat's uh kidnamed Richard Bard who is fighting
with me. That's my cameo rolein the monster suit and wearing the sneakers.
We shot the moon out and uh, it was a perth near perth
Amboy, Okay, because there wasa big area that it had no vegetation,
(08:56):
so and it really didn't all verygood either. Was this eight millimeters
or super eight? No? Supereight? You can I left in the
sprocket, so you can I seethat super right? Okay? And then
did it have film synchronized or no, I mean synchronized? There wasn't.
I wasn't shooting sound. Did youmake many films when you were a kid?
(09:20):
Yeah? Probably, yeah, quitequite a few. Do you still
have Do you still have them?Yes? I actually still have them in
what what someday I'd hoped was goingto be my screening room, but it's
actually my film room because I stillhave a lot of film there to go
through. That's so cool. Soyou and Spielberg both made movies as kids.
(09:43):
Yeah, was a little more successful, a little bit more. But
this is not one of my preparedBut have you ever met Spielberg? I
met him for about a second.You know, I think I wasn't really
even you know, interested in meetinghim, but somebody brought him up to
(10:05):
me and said, hey, thisis Pete Ran. He goes oh,
and I goes, yeah, Idon't remember who I am. Right.
Of course, when I met him, I talked about his mother's kosher dairy
restaurant which is a block from myhouse because I used to eat it with
my mother. And I told Steveand I said, Steve, and your
mother makes the best blintzes in theplanet. And he goes, yeah,
you're right, she does. Sostevens Fielberg and I bought it because his
(10:26):
mother makes good blints You've had moreto talk about with him than I.
Yeah, I did. So youtell me you were an usher in a
movie theater. What were some ofthe films that you were ushering in?
Do you remember? Yeah? Sure, I think the first film was Towering
Inferno, Okay or not. Actually, Towering Inferno was a Christmas movie.
(10:50):
I remember that because they wanted StarWars. They wanted that to be a
Christmas movie too, and it didn'tmake it. So that's why it came
out in the summer. But Ithink Live and Let Die. And what's
funny is that even during the winter, you know, it's when there'd be
(11:13):
like three feet of snow on theground and people are still standing outside in
the snow, you know, waitingto get in. And you come out
to you come out to California andyou know, it's like sixty degrees and
people have to come inside to standin the lobby because it's cold out.
So it's such a different place here. So you you came to California when
(11:35):
you were eighteen, and I believeyou told me you went to cal Arts.
So tell us about cal Arts andhow did you meet George Lucas.
Well, Well, for one thing, George Lucas, you know, I
mean, he doesn't really have anythingto do with cal Arts. But I
went to cal Arts because at thetime I had a catalog AFI catalog,
and it said that showed all thestuff that cal Arts had, all of
(12:00):
equipment on the courses, everything thatthey taught. So I said, I
want to I want to go here, and came out and actually got on
a work study program at Disney becauseI figured that was a good place to
you know, to watch them doeffects on an ongoing basis. But you
know, uh, and they wereso you're eight you're eighteen, nineteen,
(12:22):
and you're I mean, yeah,and you're hanging out at Disney. Yeah,
for a while, until they gottired of me hanging out. They
said, hey, you know,maybe maybe you'd like to meet Jim Danforth
and Dave Allen and those guys andI go, yeah, and I go,
well, here's their number. Whydon't you go hang out at their
(12:43):
place? So I did that fora day. But that's money. That's
why race. Let's see a slidenumber two. So at some point up
Peter, there you are. Yes, So how did you meet George Lucas
well? First? I let's see, uh, I met Dykester first.
(13:03):
You know when I there was afriend at cal Art's and his name was
Mike Ross, and I think heI met him and he went to h
I think he did some work forPatty Freeling to Patty Freeling did the Pink
(13:26):
Panther and they were very close toI l m in Van Eyes, so
there was some interconnection with that,and he he thought, you know,
I might be interested in because youknow, I was probably the only person
at cal Arts at the time thatwas interested in, you know, motion
picture special effects, which seemed likea far out concept. So he said,
(13:50):
why don't you, why don't yougo check that out? So I
went to I set up an appointmentand I met Dykester. Dykester, I
showed him my real which broke likeflop flop sweat dripping down your faith?
Yeah, And I offered to worka week for free if he gave me
(14:11):
a chance, and he did so. You know, it was at the
time Lucas was still in uh inEngland shooting, so it was a while
before he came back. And thisis this shot which was used even on
a record album cover. You know, it's I can say that I'm actually
on a vinyl record cover that Iguess Lucasfilm put out with this picture on
(14:35):
it. That's awesome, p Peter. Was this picture taking at Ilm and
Van Nuys? Yes, yeah,so most people know il M of course
was up in northern California, butoriginally it was started at a what was
it an airplane hangar and at VanEys. No, it was near it
was near the Van Eys Airport airport. It was an industrial building. Okay,
(14:58):
okay, so yeah, now whois the gentleman we sort of see
a little bit of his face.Is that tekster? No, that's Adam
Beckett. He was actually in chargeof this department. This was the rotoscope
animation department and he was in chargeof that. And next to next to
(15:20):
George Lucas's grows, she was writinga lot of stuff down. Okay,
all right, race, let's gota number. Let's go to number three.
S. So, Peter, whatyou worked on Star Wars? What
exactly, well, what exactly didyou do? And I know you were
involved with C three po So tellus about all that. Well, this
(15:41):
is when I was hired. Theysaid, well, we can't pay you
a lot, but this is alearning experience. So I figured, okay,
well part of my learning experience.I had this Bullocks sixteen milimeter camera
and I set it up up,you know, like, hey, they
were going to shoot something out inthe parking lot, you know, some
(16:04):
miniature explosions and stuff. So Isaid, well, I uh, stopped
what I was doing and went downstairsshot, uh, you know, shot
some film. My job was asa rotoscope animator, and that's like somebody
who sits under an animation camera,draws out what you're projecting, makes the
(16:29):
lasers, light light effects, stufflike that. But I would come downstairs
and you know, and and shootstuff. And and it turned out that
that was some of the few piecesof footage they didn't actually have somebody shooting
behind the scenes footage on the originalStar Wars for the effects. So so
(16:52):
you did. So you did shootsome of that stuff. Yeah no,
And well at first they said,they said, well, we want that
film and just give it to usbecause you were worked for hire and so
anything you were doing here belongs tous. And I said, well that's
not that's not the way you putit in the first place. You know,
(17:14):
when I was there at the beginning, you said it was a learning
experience, and shooting this footage ispart of my learning experience. And they
said, okay, we'll give youa bunch of money for it. And
I said, fine, okay,I got you, all right, raised
number four? All right, sonow are you are you at the left
or you're in the suit? Aren'tyou? Now? I'm in the suit?
Yeah, all right, So tellus about like why are you in
(17:37):
that suit? There c three puwell among the animation chores and then shooting
you know, some behind the scenesstuff I was doing. I guess I
was skinny enough to fit in thesuit. So they and they wanted to
shoot this this test to see ifthey could make you know, the land
(18:02):
speeder that you know digitally you canmake the land speeder do anything. But
you know, you couldn't do itback then, you know, and somebody
had the idea of putting uh,the mirror, putting a beer underneath it
and reflecting the ground and then andthat made it look like it was floating.
Cool. So they stuck me inthe suit. They made me Mark
(18:26):
Hamill too. So hold so whywas Anthony Daniels in there? And and
you were because they shot the moviein England and the original movie in England.
And this was shot out at ElMirage, which was you know,
just south of north of Los Angeles. So this is this is shot after
(18:47):
the other footage. This is ohyeah, this is later. This is
later footage. Yes, okay,this is this is the laborious concept of
pickups editorial. Okay, got youraise number five please? All right?
So this is you with three Poat the Chinese Museum, your Chinese theater.
(19:07):
You're helping C three Po put hisfeet in the what what what do
you remember about that day? Uh? Well, I remember they I think
they paid me seventy five dollars.Usually it's usually what they after the movie
was over. After the movie wasdone, they laid everybody off. But
I think they actually wanted to tryto keep me working, you know,
(19:30):
because they like my h they likedmy attitude, so I you know,
so they'd hire me and bring mein and and you know, like help
Anthony Daniels when he because he wantedto be there in the suit. So,
uh was that was that him inthat suit that day? Yes?
Aren't? Aren't you glad that thatphoto exists? I mean that's a that's
(19:52):
an all time Hoby would classic photo. Man'd be nice if there was a
landscape version. I think it's Ithink it's awesome, just real, real
quick. So you you were involvedvery They did a lot of stuff after
after the movie, you know,and they would just tire me, yeah,
for promotions. But like you wereso involved with the film itself when
(20:15):
it was a global phenomenon. Whatdid you how did you feel? Were
you like, oh my god,I can't believe this. Did you have
a feeling that it was going tobe big? No? No, I
mean well, I mean I figuredit was big for me because it was
my first film, right right,But you probably just were as amazed as
everybody else, right, Yeah.I mean it was kind of luck,
(20:37):
you know that that that I hiton it then, you know, I
mean, this is the first filmin Hollywood is Star Wars. I mean
you could have you could have retiredand gone home at that point. All
right, Race, I don't thinkso, Race. Let's do number six.
So, Peter, you worked forGeorge Lucas's I l M on the
next film, Empire Strikes Back.What did you do for that film?
(21:00):
And there's you obviously in that redcircle. Uh, there's George's in front
of you. And the white lookslike a white sweater. So what did
you do on Empire? Well,they hired when they opened up in San
Rafel for the second picture, theyhired me up there for being the animation
rotoscope supervisor. So I, youknow, took on that challenge. And
(21:29):
you know, I was still doingsome work down in LA because I I
was still kind of smarting from beinglaid off the first time. So I
like to you know, set upother things going on, you know.
So I've been in that screening room, so you know, you probably know
this more recently. It was calledKerner Studios. Sure, yes, So
(21:51):
I was the publicist for several years. I was the publicist for Kerner Studios.
I've been inside that that theater withinthe last fifteen years, I was
inside that theater. Yeah, wow, I should show you the picture that
I have in there of I'm sittingin the background and there's Gary Kurtz,
George Lucas and Walter Cronkite. Ohwow, Well that's called the George Lucas
(22:15):
Theater. When it was Kerner,it's called the George Lucas Theater. Yeah,
all right, number seven race please, and now this is his frame
that you were involved with the Empireof the film. Tell us what we're
looking at. You wanted to dosomething, you wanted to see something,
So you tell us what we're lookingat. Here. That's the last that's
the speeder and it's going around thesnow walker. And I drew in the
(22:41):
animated in the lasso, so sothat's Andrew. Yeah, and and the
and the reflection or the shadows rightright, and and you know what I
thought, because I did. Idid a shadow for the rope too,
and I where I can see itthere, and I swear that that when
(23:03):
we did that, Lucas said dropthe shadow on the rope because you wouldn't
see a shadow on a rope,But I see it. So I don't
know why, I guess, man, So you andrew that rope coming out
of the Chaser and the Shadow ofIt underg you didn't do the shadow of
those elephant legs though, right?No? Okay no? And did you
(23:26):
do a lot of work on theEmpire? Well, I supervised the department,
So you have to understand that,you know a lot of the time,
I'm you know, either getting toldsomeone by somebody higher up or plotting
how work was going to get done. You know how many people were in
(23:47):
your department at that time to recall, not a lot. I mean there
was Sam and John and Ken tenfifteen twenty oh less than ten. Okay,
all right, Peter, it's twentyfive. After we've got to take
a break, pay a few bills, race, we'll rock and roll with
some messages. We'll come back withPeter Kran. We'll talk to him about
(24:08):
when he launched his company VCE.Right after these messages. Ay, UFO
Conference enthusiasts, We've got another greatevent for you in twenty twenty four.
The Saucers and Aliens Kansas UFO Dayand Dimension G is being held in the
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(24:33):
in the middle of nowhere. Therewill be a parade, decorated yards,
costumes, vendors, speakers, anda showing of the movie Today The Horse
Stood Still. Appropriately, an eightfoot tall statue of Gorge and a statue
of the plateau will be dedicated.This will be the only museum in the
US with these custom made statues.If you'd like to donate in the statue
(24:56):
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website at onnexnetwork dot com. That'sonexnetwork dot com. This is Margie K
and I'd like to say thank youto all of our KU NX show hosts,
staff, listeners and viewers for makingus number one on paranormal talk radio.
(28:33):
And we're back with the Academy Awardwinner Peter Curran, my friend Race.
Let's bring Peter Beck in so Peter, uh, we have a lot
to do in the short time,so let's rock and roll here. After
you left I Elminady, you launchedthe VCE, your own visual effects company.
You did a lot of work fora lot of very big popular films.
Can you tell me one or justone or two that come to mind
(28:55):
that you are particularly proud of.Well. I like my work on RoboCop
because I got a single card onit at the end. But Adam's Family,
Adams Family Movies, you know,it's all of that stuff was done
before the digital so you know youhave to. You have to look at
it from the standpoint that you know, a lot of that work is done
(29:21):
and you don't know what it lookslike until you get it back the next
day. Yeah. I mean,you guys, you could look at it
right away. You know, youguys were the real artists. Man,
you guys were the real artists.You had to think creatively and invent new
methods and be innovative right on thefly. And I admire all you guys.
All of us dinosaurs have to sticktogether. Okay, so jump ahead
(29:44):
a little bit. You know,you and I met in the mid nineties.
You hired me to do the prfor your documentary film Trinity and Beyond,
the Atomic Bond movie, and obviouslyI wanted you on my show now
timing wise, because of course,Oppenheimer just one best picture. It's in
the news, and the atomic bombstuff is in the news quite a bit.
So Race, let's show Peter's trailerfor Trinity and Beyond, and then
(30:07):
after that, Peter, you andI will talk about it. So let's
show the trailer. Okay, youhave a grandstand seat here to one of
the most momentous events in the historyof science. M M. M.
(31:37):
Yeah, that's really great. Manlooks really really good. All right,
So we have quite a few stillframes. Let's put out the can I
just mention the music by WILLIAMS.Stromberg and John Morgan, because that's,
you know, that's what really makesthe film. You know, it's fabulous,
It's absolutely brilliant. It's wonderful.All right, Race, Let's put
up number eight and then I'll askPeter, how did you and be oncome
(32:00):
about? Why did you make it? And what's behind your fascination with atomic
bomb? You know, I haveto I have to credit the Barney movie
for getting me so disillusioned about workingon something that I didn't want to work
on and they didn't want to hireme anyway, and I felt like I
(32:21):
just wasted so much time going andtalking to those people that I felt,
if I'm going to spend time andwaste my money, I should do it
on something that might actually mean somethingsomeday. So I got interested in it
because you know, people would alwayssay, you know, I want to
see something I'd never seen before.And when I was fifteen, I went
(32:43):
on a YMCA studied MC vacation intoJapan, went to Hiroshimause I mean it,
you know, it affected me,and you know it's just been an
interesting subject. You know, henever told me that. That's very you
never told me that. Sorry aboutJapan. That makes a lot of sense.
(33:05):
I raised number nine. Please allright, So Peter, who what
are we looking at here? This? This is Edward Teller he was It
was one of my first interviews,and he is the you know, considered
the father of the hydrogen bomb,and very difficult to get in to get
a an interview with him. Uh. And Richard Rhoades, who wrote the
(33:30):
New York Times best selling book onthe atomic bomb, asked me how I
had how I had was able toget an interview with him because he wasn't
he couldn't get an interview. Isaid, well, you have to talk
to his secretary. You get herinterested in it, and he'll have to,
uh, he'll have to accommodate her. Did you try to get any
(33:51):
of Oppenheimer's relatives? No? No, I you know, I wasn't sure
at the time where I wanted to, you know, go with a film,
but it seemed yeah, it seemedlike you know, it was a
it was sort of a Frank Sheltonand Edward Teller sort of movie. So
(34:12):
I got you. Okay, wellthat's very cool picture you and Edward Taylor,
father of the hydrogen Bob. Allright, Race, let's do number
ten. Please? What do wegot here? That's me out in the
desert. Just you know, thatwas my Mitchell at the time, and
I was shooting stuff out at theTrinity site. We were shooting out at
(34:34):
the Trinity site, and you know, just I guess it's kind of hard
to prove that I was there,but yeah, yeah, you needed like
you need like a Trinity marker inthe background or something. This could have
been your back This could be.This could be your backyard, you know,
yeah, it could be. Itcould be. I believe Number eleven,
please, race, this is athis is a classic photo. Tell
(35:00):
what this is. This is fromI guess nineteen fifty eight Hard Tech two.
It was out in the Nevada desertand so they you know, they
were getting more protection, I guessfrom radiation. So you always want to
(35:24):
protect the film too, So youwant a government I'm sure you know place's
high priority on making sure the filmdoesn't get fogged. Yeah, how did
the film not get fogged? Imean, were there. Did they invent
a special case in those days forthe film? Actually they did for sure.
Well, there was one film stockcalled MF and that film stock was
(35:45):
very slow and it was kind ofkind of gamma ray resistant, but they'd
still have to put it in abox that had you know, like two
inches at least two inches of lead. I think that's around it. So
in color film you couldn't shoot closerthan about four thousand feet, so,
(36:06):
you know, because the radiation fieldis kind of contained within a certain area,
you know, and you know anyway, you know, so yeah,
with race, let's move on.I think number twelve, I think we're
right now, Great, there wego. Okay, look at this which
(36:31):
which test was Dispeter? Do youknow? Sure? This was a teapot
and met and that meant military effectstest. That was nineteen fifty five Operation
Teapot. But what you're seeing here, this is before digital. You know,
this is actual trick photography. Youknow, you can get a shot
(36:52):
like this by taking a very longtelephoto lens and getting really far back from
the people. And the longer thetelephoto lens, the more compressed the image
gets. So how far in reallife? How far with those men from
the from the blast. I wouldhope they're at least eight miles really eight
(37:15):
miles in between. Yeah, there'scertainly they're way more than two I can
think, because this picture makes itlook like about a couple of hundred yards
I know, I know, well, you know, they couldn't be they
couldn't be that close. I thinkthat's a remarkable in the open and stand
Out in the open a remarkable photo. That's great. Okay, erase number
(37:37):
thirteen please, Okay. So Peter, tell us about Lookout. This is
Lookout Mountain Studios. Tell us forpeople who don't know what that was.
Well, the Lookout in the studioswas this location up in the Hollywood Hills.
It wasn't on Lookout Mountain Avenue.It was on Wonderland Avenue. And
it's actually still there. It's thisbut it's a private resid and see now,
(38:00):
and it's right in the middle oflike personal home, private residents and
this is where they set up shopto make the documentary films that were made
by Lookout Mountain, you know,for the Department of Energy and the Department
of Defense during the fifties and sixties. Yeah, so what we did pr
(38:23):
we call this, you know,the Hollywood movie studio. No one ever
knew about it, was well yeah, I mean you know, I hadn't
known about it until I started workingon Trinity because I was keeping names.
I was collecting names of the peoplethat were on the slates, and some
guy and Warner Brothers at the time, and said, oh, we got
(38:43):
some one of those guys working forus here. Let me give you his
name, and I contacted him.And that's when, you know, they
all contacted, all of them,you know, they all got in touch
and I, you know, gotto be a friend of them. I
remember going there, I believe you. And I went there with CNN,
I think with Dennis Michael with CNN. I know I was inside. I
(39:05):
think Jared Leto the movie Star ownsit now, Is that right? That's
right, Jared, Yes, Jared, Jared. My daughter, My daughter
loves her. She has a crutchand all right. Race number fourteen,
another great picture. What is this? This is the cameraman cameraman in action,
as they would like to say.This is a blimp that was downed
(39:30):
I think by a test called Plumbbobsand the Navy brought Blimpse out to the
desert. I guess to check themand see what happens when they're hit by
a shockwave. So you know,so the shockwave brought that down. Yes,
not a bomb underneath directly underneath.Oh no, no, it would
(39:52):
have been in cinder. It wouldhave been in yes, right, It
shows you how smart I am.All right, race, who are we?
We had fourteen or fifteen that Ilost track? Okay, okay,
tell us about this one. Well, there's this is a test that was
done during It was a test calledPlumbbob John and they had five guys standing
(40:16):
below where an air to air nuclearmissile was going to explode. And the
photography, even though it says populationfive, there are actually six people there.
And the sixth person was George Yoshitaki, who would was shooting it with
his cameras. But there's the guyin the middle had you don't see it
(40:39):
here very well. But he hada microphone. And I've been looking for
the tape because because he actually wasrecording sound at the time, and I
actually I eventually found the tape andit was on it was on eBay.
Really, that's where you got it. That's great, Yeah, it was
(41:00):
you know on eBay and I wasable to, you know, take it
and sync up parts of what theywere saying. So that's awesome, that's
great. All right, sixteen Race, my brother sixteen Okay, this is
Peter. What is this. Thisis a shot of the fireball from upshot,
not hole Grabel. Grabel was theatomic cannon. That was that shot
(41:24):
a shot a nuclear shell and itexploded. Now, all that little stuff
down at the bottom are like tanksand jeeps and cars. You know.
Those little things are all vehicles.And there's like a little chip that you
(41:45):
see just below the fireball, andthat's the shockwave having bounced off the ground
and it's bouncing back up and we'lleventually go back up through the shockwave.
The little vehicles look like little tacotoys, look a lot smaller than that.
Yeah, amazing photo. All right, seventeen Race, all right,
so look at this. I havea little I have listen. I have
(42:07):
to pr myself so everyone. Iwas the publicist for Trinity and beyond.
Peter gave me that honor, andhe gave me a credit publicist, Dana
Rorri. There it is. Ihaven't seen that in almost thirty years.
I found that and then Peter madeit look better. But thank you for
giving me a credit. I've onlyhad five or six in my whole forty
year career. That's one of them. And you spelled my name right,
(42:30):
So that's why that's a really particularYou know, my mother is very happy
that I got a credit. Youhave a credit in a movie. Oh
my god, I really appreciate that. Bro. All right, Race,
let's take that off the screen andthen just have Peter. So, Peter,
you know, Trinity was very successful. You want awards a chute all
over the world. Do you thinkthat altered your career or it was a
(42:52):
pretty big, you know project.How do you feel about Trinity where it
took you in the future. Iwas actually quite pleased that I do consulting
to the National Labs. I didn'tI didn't go looking for the job.
(43:15):
You know, it basically found mebecause I had already done so much on
it and I've kind of become somewhatof an expert on you know, the
photography. So right, I likeworking for these people because it's a lot
less stressful than working on movies.Great, I know, I know you've
(43:37):
said that. So you work forLivermoore in Los Alamos Labs. And you
tell me just earlier today that whenyou've been out in Nevada, I think
you said something about area fifty oneand tell us that we have to ask
I have to ask you about areafifty one and UFO is what's your well,
you know what I was your pigeonon that well. I've been meaning
(43:57):
also to mention, you know,not that that I have an interest in
the Atomic Testing Museum, but theydo UFO. In fact, it seems
like, you know Area fifty onein UFO, stuff for the National or
for the Atomic Testing Museum is morepopular than atomic bomb stuff. But I
was out in I was out inthe Nevada Desert, Nevada test site,
(44:22):
and I not like I go thereall the time. I was out there
once when I was working on anotherdocumentary. And you can stand over.
You can stand over the crater,the Sedan crater, which is the result
is a huge crater, which isthe result of one hundred and four megaton,
not one hundred and four, onehundred of ar Kelton test really blew
(44:46):
up a big hole in the desert. But you can see from there,
you can see area fifty one,and I remember we were there and he
said, oh, yeah, that'sthe it's area fifty one. And I
just remember seeing a FedEx truck drivingtowards it. So you didn't see anything,
(45:06):
You didn't see anything good up inthe sky. There no, But
you know I can understand that.You know, if I was living next
to the Nevada test side, Iwould be concerned. They're all you see,
all those areas are numbered, sowhen it says area fifty one,
it's just over on the side ofthe Nevada Test site, which is a
bunch of other areas. And what'syour opinion about UFOs and extraterrestrial life?
(45:30):
What what just personal opinion. Idon't see why they now I'm not a
UFO person person, but I mean, you know, I I like,
you know, I I one ofthe things that I'm learning, you know,
as I as I work on theatomic bomb. You know, there's
(45:54):
so much physics that goes on thatdon't make sense. So you know,
I mean, like, for instance, a photon, a photon when what
we see is the result of photonshitting objects, you know, and that's
how we that's how we see light, and a photon can turn into a
(46:15):
wave and it can be you know, and it can be solid you know
it. You know, when youget down on that level, there's all
sorts of weird stuff that happens.And I think you know, any group
that's been you know, that's masteredit before us could certainly, you know,
can can certainly travel through space andtime. I would think, you
(46:37):
know, to any where they want, you know, if they're that advanced.
So but I'm not a I'm nota UFO guy. No, no,
I know, I know you shouldcome to Contact in the desert and
hang out with me, because Iliterally I know the top people in the
world. They're my friends. Doall right, we've a had a little
bit. In nineteen ninety seven,you and I did a very special event
(46:58):
at the American Film Institute to promoteTrinity and Beyond, and you, to
your credit, you reunited these elderlyThey were all men, elderly men cinematographers
who shot atomic bomb footage around theworld the forties, fifties, sixties,
I think even the seventies, maybeearly seventies. Well no, no,
no, no, no no,they did a lot. The last atmosphere,
(47:22):
well, okay, the last atmospheretest was finished, was done in
like nineteen sixty two, maybe sixtythree, you know, which which whatever
you count as an atmospheric test.But I would say that, you know,
in nineteen ninety two was the lastunderground test we did, so you
know, by then they you know, underground tests don't really look like that's
(47:45):
right. So the cinematographers we gatheredwere really the forties, fifties, very
very early sixties. Yeah, theymoved on to the Vietnam War, I
think, right, Okay, sowe reunited them for the first time.
We did an event at AFI.We got tons and tons of I mean,
every major media outlet was there.You and I had a great time.
Race can we see number eighteen please? I remember the thing that you
(48:10):
had said. You know, youtook me outside and looked at all of
the press that was there, andyou said, look at this, look
at this, get a look atthis because you'll never see it again.
Hey, I've never seen it again, and I'm a publicist. Yeah,
yeah, Peter, that was remarkableevening. So here's some of the people.
(48:31):
I mean, these are people intheir seventies and eighties. God bless
them. These were one I metall these people, they were terrific,
and you know, you know,it was really a shame. You know,
it's like if you know AFI,you know, it's up on a
hill. Yeah, of course,and all of the spaces near the top
(48:52):
of the hill wound up getting occupiedby all the media. The part these
guys had to park at the bottomof the walk I worked at. I
worked at a FI for two years. I know that hill man. Yeah,
yeah, that's well listen to whatcan we do? But that was
really cool. Race number nineteen.Please all right, Peter, there's you.
(49:14):
It's a little hard to see,but you're in at the podium and
you're doing a Q and A withsome of these legendary cinematographers. What what
do you What do you remember aboutthat roundtable right there? Well, the
guy in the checker outfit is DougWood, and he was kind of like
the mastermind of you know, peoplepeople contacted him. And next to him
(49:37):
is Jack Cannon. And Jack Cannon, by the way, was one of
the photographers on the Atomic Cannon.So oh, that's funny. They probably
picked it because at the yeah,I know, and next to him I
think is Pat Bradley and Peter Wilson. So, you know, I think
(50:01):
they'd all pretty much retired at thispoint. When I asked him, if
you know you wanted to get togetherand you know, have this, I
mean I considered it like a wrapparty. You know, when you finish,
you finish a movie, you finisha movie, and it's like I
had these guys' names and I wantedto you know, I wanted to give
(50:22):
him a wrap party. Well itwas like thirty five years delayed, right,
thirty five years delayed wrap I saythat was we both met these guys
very nice, Their wives were veryvery sweet. Race number twenty one,
okay, so I mean that's akiller. How come you're not in that
(50:42):
picture, Peter, I'm not inthat picture, not one of them.
You should you should you gathered them. You should have been right in the
middle there. I might have beenin one of the pictures. You know,
I'm looking for them. You knowthey've This was so long ago when
some of these pictures came off ofa camera that used a three and a
quarter inch floppy. You know what, I I to blow my own horn.
(51:05):
I think I created this picture.In other words, I think I
gathered them and said, hey,everyone, we need a PR photoga.
I think I put them up there, but yeah, no, I probably
did. I should have. Ishould have shoved you, Peter. I
should have shoved you in them,and you should have been right in the
middle there. Yeah, what goingto all right? Next one? All
right, so this is period.This is you and me, And these
(51:28):
are two two of my very dearfriends. They worked for me at the
time. They're both very excellent publicists. My friend Heather Burguette is in white.
My friend Page Parsons is in theblack jacket. They both have their
own PR firms. They worked forme in the nineties and they moved on
and we're still friends. We stillsee each other every so often. And
that you wanted this picture because Ilook, you look someone someone said you
(51:52):
look like a serial killer, butI said, you know, I said,
I don't care. I want somePR for myself. So this,
this proves that Peter and I workedtogether at the a FI that night's I
wanted that picture. And they havethe wall of photos behind us. You
could tell there's a couple of themthere. Yeah, all right, Race,
(52:12):
we can take that one down.Oh oh well you want Yeah,
you want to jump to this isthat is that the next one? Yeah?
Yeah, okay, So let meask you the question. All right,
So you created a RCI color restorationprocess, and you want you won
an Academy award, Scientific Academy Award. Tell us what we're looking at and
explain how you came up with this. Well, for one thing, you're
(52:35):
looking at a picture of Werner vonBraun, the German scientist who invented the
V one and the V two.He got a he got a pretty good
deal from the Americans, you know, and he invented like the Redstone rocket
and and some other he was hewas big in the in the missile delivery.
(52:59):
And this is on Johnson Island.And basically what happened was the negative
had faded and when the negative page, you have this positive crossover, which
means it's got blue shadows and yellowhighlights. So then I had come up
with this idea where you can takeyou can make a yellow mask and A
(53:24):
and an ip with a with blueshadows and put them together and it takes
out the problem. It gives youa good color. I actually came up
with this idea when I was thesame concept when I was working on Return
of the Jedi, and I didthese light lightsabers out in the desert,
(53:46):
and when you're out in the desert, it's hard to get color, you
know, not now, but thiswas back in the days when you had
optical printers to deal with, andyou know, the colors would would fate,
would fade away. So I cameup with this idea of adding color
masks and uh, and that's basicallyhow that works. So you used this
(54:12):
process, Peter, for the atomicfilm footage that was languishing in archives for
decades and you managed to get permissionto restore it and make it look beautiful,
right, And yeah, I meanbasically at the time. Uh.
And the uh, the place whereI had a lot of work was with
(54:36):
this place called DITRIACH, which isthe Defense Threat Reduction Information and Analysis Center.
And like doctor Bayern Risfit, theywere Cherry Lewis and some other people
who worked there. They were interestedin what I was, what I was
doing, and they had a lotof film and they had said, you
(54:57):
know, during not every year,you know, but some of the years,
like fifty six, nineteen fifty six, fifty seven, fifty eight,
the color on the negatives were fadingbad and they asked me if if there
was something I could do about it, and I wasn't really in the restoration
business at the time, so Iyou know, I was thinking kind of
(55:17):
outside the box, you know.Yeah, optical printing. Yeah, and
you get it won an Academy Awardfor it. Yeah, I guess it's
probably the last photochemical Academy Award everdished out. That's pretty cool. Before
we read that at a time,please tell me what you thought of the
movie, Oppenheimer. No, youknow what, it's good that that was
(55:45):
Oppenheimer was able to generate the interestand best Picture. I mean, I
have issues with it, especially whenthe bomb blows up. I think some
of the most fascinating parts of thenuclear explosion is probably within the first few
(56:05):
microseconds. And you know, theydidn't really they didn't really go into all
of those effects that happened, youknow. But I mean, as far
as I'm sorry there were it waskind of loud. The movie is kind
of loud. But look, Iyou know, I more more power to
them being making it, to makingit and making it an Academy Award winning
(56:31):
program. Yeah, it's too badChris Nolan didn't reach out to you.
I mean you you are the atomicbomb Garu of film. I mean,
you know, you know there,you know, things that could look really
cool or like just setting off littlecaps underwater. You know, they make
these bubbles and they could have youknow, he doesn't want to use digital
but you know, regardless of thefact that they did. Yeah. Really,
(56:55):
so what's what he got going on? What's next to Peter Kurran in
next couple of hours? What areyou? What're you doing now? Well?
I forgot to mention I did makeanother documentary called The Neutron Bomb,
which of course, of course youdid. I forgot to tell you.
Okay, so we'll add that toyour repertoire, your reputation. You can
(57:17):
you can each out and find that, you know, go to our Adam
Central YouTube show or YouTube channel orAdam Central dot com. You know a
T A T O M at Tomcentraldot com. Right at Tom central dot
com. I put up you know, lots of atomic bomb stuff and I
(57:37):
work on it to make it,you know, make it look pristine.
And you know, yeah, it'snever looked it never looke didn't look that
good on day one when they shotit. I mean, you restored these
historic films. They chronicle the historyof this weapon. And like you said
at the a FI you said,if if we don't preserve things like this,
(57:59):
you know, history, we willforget. Yeah. This era of
time, the forties fifty sixties wasa very historic era. We have thirties
to fifty seconds. Thank you,Peter. It's great to see you.
Man. This went really fast.We could probably have done another hour.
Thank you very much. How couldpeople get if someone wants to write to
you, how should they reach you? Well, I have an email address.
(58:23):
Well is it on atomcentral dot com? Yeah, look, go to
Adam Central dot com, okay Atoand Adam central dot com. You got
Peter Kuran. If you're in tIMDb, check him out. He has
an incredible resume. You see,the biggest some of the biggest hits in
Hollywood history went through Peter's hands.I didn't realize you worked on Return of
(58:45):
the Jedi. That was after youhad your own company. Yes, and
you know what I worked on another. I worked on a total of about
seventeen films for ILM Lucasfilm. Youknow, I only worked there on the
first two. But then after havingmy own company up and up for a
(59:05):
while they were giving me work becauseI was good at optical printing. Yeah,
and George Lucas obviously like you.Thank you very much. Peter Couran,
I appreciate it. At om attomcentral dot com everything about Peter for
me, Dan harariauthor dot com.Also, I'm the head of the Hollywood
Disclosure Alliance, so it's Hollywood DisclosureAlliance dot org. Please write to me.
(59:29):
I want to hear from you.And if you're into UFOs, please
go to Contact in the Desert dotcom. Get your tickets. They're going
fast, but it'll be the bestUFO conference in the history of the world.
Thank you very much. Next weekmy guests will be Katie Page,
longtime experiencer out of Colorado, friendof mine, and Katie Page a week
from tonight on Live from Hollywood.It's Paranormal Tonight. Have a good week
(59:52):
everyone. Thank you for watching andlistening. I appreciate it. Thank you,
Bye bye Stag
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