Baz Luhrmann

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Speaker 1: The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio.

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Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of The Quest Loft Show.

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Speaker 1: I will say that our guest today.

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Speaker 2: Is a visionary, a visionary so many iconic moments and his canon be it of course, moll And Rouge, Romeo and Juliet, the Elvis film The Great Gatsby. You know, not enough people to talk about the get down. Nobody talks about the get down right now, We're here to celebrate probably one of the most clever acronyms, a movie called Epic, which is Elvis Presley in concert. I guess you could say almost companion film to the Elvis biopick. And it's an amazing rare look. I believe, over fifty nine hours of rare concert footage that hasn't been seen. And in a minute, so much to talk about, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, bads. Look all right, lureman, is that is okay?

00:01:20
Speaker 1: You say?

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Speaker 3: You do everything perfectly?

00:01:22
Speaker 1: There you go, Baz Lauren, thank you for coming to the Quest Love Show. How are you today?

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Speaker 4: Well, I'm extremely happy to be here on your show, man, because I you know, you said a lot of nice things about me and my work, and I feel the same about you, and I feel somewhat of a kindred spirit and that I think both of us, you know, we don't specify ourselves. Like you love music, you love storytelling, you love ideas, you like people, and you love culture.

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Speaker 3: And that's the way I see the world.

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Speaker 2: You know, I'm kind of geeking out because the fact that you're even putting.

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Speaker 1: My pronoun into we and us, Like, I'm glad.

00:02:04
Speaker 2: You see me as Atlasa Kendrick spirit, you know. Okay, So I have so many questions to ask you about your career, but for me, the most important is I guess your trademark that I know you for is kind of your anachronistic treatment of music in period pieces.

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Speaker 1: I remember sitting there and rolling me.

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Speaker 2: On Juliette, like, wait a minute, this music wasn't out there, and like are they allowed to do that? Like we had so many talks about wait, are they allowed to just disregard time?

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Speaker 1: And you know, and this happens often in your movies.

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Speaker 2: When you first get a spark for a project, does the playlist come first? Like how important is our songs to you before you start a project?

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Speaker 4: Well, first, of all these I pop into my mind and then I go, I must do it. I think everything I've ever made has been in my mind from the get gos. It is like the list of things I feel I must make, not what I want to make, but what I must make.

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Speaker 3: There's too many that I won't get them all done before I go.

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Speaker 4: But like, for example, one thing I was always fascinated with since being a kid was if Shakespeare made a movie? How would he go about making a movie? And so then it begins with that philosophical idea. I usually spend time like I have a great friend Craig Piers went to school. We wrote things together, you know, seem like serial collaborators, musers, friends going up and downhills, drinking too many glasses of wine and going.

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Speaker 3: Now, which, what's right? What's useful? Now?

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Speaker 4: So then it goes like, oh, you know, I really want to reinvent the musical, but that's going to be more complicated. So I just quickly bang off, you know, what would Shakespeare do it for me?

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Speaker 3: A movie? That was the mission?

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Speaker 4: Now I say that, and it will answer your question, because in studying Shakespeare very deeply, he would do things like very broad comedy and then huge drama in the next minute. The other thing he did was he took pop music from the street and put it into his shows.

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Speaker 3: And he was pillared for this.

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Speaker 4: He was considered, I mean other writers at the time that this guy is just such trash and he's a working class he's not educated, he'll never last. But because he did it, I would do it now now. To be clear, as we were developing script, I developed the music language as well. So it's literally written in the script of Romeo and Juliet. I think it was something like a boy with the voice of Stevie Wonder sings a version of Princess Dove's Cry as a hymn as Romeo and Juliet. So I can se the music of equal importance in the fabric of storytelling as I with the words and the image. I actually developed them in parallel, like three scripts.

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Speaker 2: I guess you're telling me that you're saying that you inherently know everything. And I believe this too, that all humans know everything. We just have to channel you know, the information, everything we need to know, everything that we're going to know in this lifetime is already inside of us.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, life is a self revelation that never stops.

00:05:31
Speaker 1: Correct. So that said, I gotta ask.

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Speaker 2: I mean, because everything you've done is ambitious, is there a holy Grail project that you dream of making that's kind of on the back Murner right now.

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Speaker 3: Well, I have to be very careful.

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Speaker 1: You can't.

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Speaker 4: Okay, no, no, because my answer going to sound pretentious, and the answer is not.

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Speaker 1: You're an artist.

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Speaker 3: Not because anything I think up, I don't go.

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Speaker 4: I mean, this does sound pretentious, but I don't go like I got this idea.

00:06:03
Speaker 3: I need to get a job.

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Speaker 4: I just have always been either arrogant enough, or foolish enough, or blind enough or singular enough to go hmmm. Shakespeare directs a film. I want to make that now. At that stage I had made Strictly Borim and it was a wonderful journey. It was a play that I devised in Lae. And when we did the film, we lost the one distributor.

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Speaker 3: And then the guy brings me up.

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Speaker 4: I'm shaving my long collly black care off going Obviously, I'll never make a movie again. It says my name is Beer Rision, I'm from Zeke and film Festivela like to invade you. We go Boom twelve o'clock, most amount of sales in history.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Changes, Yes, exactly, my life changes.

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Speaker 4: So by having said that, in doing a first look deal with Fox, they were definitely not expecting me to walk in and say I want to do Shakespeare, as if Shakespeare was directing a movie. That was not what they were hoping for. But I just go, that is what is needed to tell you right now, Right now, I mean, I'm in the middle of this, and this is god epic has its own quite extraordinary life. Even I'm swept up and surprised and joyed by the embrace. And I'm not just saying that as a sales pitch, but in the background, on a very deep level, I'm working on jan Dac the story of Joan of arc in the belief that in two years time, a story about a world that is stuck in this echo chamber of old dudes who want to keep it going around and round and around because it makes money. And she says enough is enough. And she comes from a small country town at the age of seventeen and lifts up a young king who's on his last knees and changes history for that generation.

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Speaker 3: And I just think that's going to be useful. So I just think I have to.

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Speaker 2: Do it continue the tradition of playing with time in terms of.

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Speaker 4: I know every step genov ARC's taken, I've taken it, and I've worked with academic systuff, very very academically. But then I say, my job is to translate it for the audience at this time, in this moment.

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Speaker 3: And so without saying.

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Speaker 4: What yeah, well, without saying what it is, yeah, see, here's my thing, here's my thing.

00:08:26
Speaker 3: Listen to my thing.

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Speaker 4: You take Gatsby, whether people agree with what I did in Gadsby or not. I was working on Gatsby and Fitzgerald wrote into his novella Black Street Music, which was called jazz, even termed the phrase of jazz age, and people went, why are you doing that? It's going to be a fad, this jazz stuff, But when you come to make the movie, it's kind of got a nostalgic patina. So then I get with jay Z and Jay I told him all about it down just down the road here, and before I even finished, he says, what are you talking about? We're doing it, And he says, we're going to do this, and together we embark on this journey bringing lots of artists together because we wanted to show that that is what it is and what it felt like, and what Gatsby in the novel felt like was kind of what hip hop could do for us.

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Speaker 1: I understand.

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Speaker 2: So, yeah, if you put jazz inside of Gatsby, now jazz is your grandparents' music, it's it's except great.

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Speaker 3: But I don't understand.

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Speaker 4: It was like edgy and scary and was like cut through you know, gotcha?

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Speaker 2: What was your first musical memory in life? Your very first musical memory.

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Speaker 3: Easy.

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Speaker 4: My father went to the Vietnam War and when he came back, he brought with him what was called a real to real Akai, very very high tech, and we were in Sydney for a while. Then we moved to a tiny country town. And in this tiny country town we had the gas station and a restaurant, a pig farm.

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Speaker 3: It's only about five houses.

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Speaker 4: But Dad had a Kai and it came with the demonstration tape. And the demonstration tape had Tijuana brass, classical music, Mozart, the Beatles, and the sound of the Japanese.

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Speaker 3: Bulletrain going right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, it's random. Yeah, what I want to show stereo. Okay, Oh, there was a voice that said something like.

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Speaker 3: A Japanese bullet train now as it rips.

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Speaker 4: By, and it could record. But the thing is, I think that we used to play the tape endlessly. And then there were records, and then I ran my own radio station, not as cool as yours. I only had one record called One is the Loneliest Number, which I don't find it. But I think the variety of that music left me with a sort of lack of prejudice about kinds of music.

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Speaker 3: There was just music, good and average.

00:10:59
Speaker 1: Which city is the that you were born in or grew up in?

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Speaker 4: But I was born in Sydney on the sand outside where my parents were building a house with their bare hands. But then very early on, we moved to this tiny country town in the bush in Australia, kinda not in desert in huge trees, like it was a forestry area on a highway.

00:11:22
Speaker 1: All right.

00:11:22
Speaker 2: So many elements of your life I think can be traced to your formative years. Everything as the irony hit you or whatever, like your dad runs a movie theater and suddenly like this is your life.

00:11:33
Speaker 1: Your mom was a ballroom instructor, so that's you do strictly ballroom. I mean, your name is Mark Anthony.

00:11:39
Speaker 2: So there's some sort of Caesarus Shakespearean thing going on. First of all, where is the name Baz come from?

00:11:47
Speaker 1: Is that a nickname?

00:11:47
Speaker 3: Or yeah?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Well Willams is rather than going to the epic version epic as you know, it was President Constant give a plug, just kidding bigger, but no, the epic version of it. But we my brothers and I grew up my sister. There was a moment of tumultuous separation and my mother leaves us to go to the city, and you know, I just knew I would forever be there.

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Speaker 3: And that was a very loving man, and he.

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Speaker 4: Had all sorts of artists stay with us, and he didn't ever ask to be without education. So we learned photography and bought him dancing and commander training all at once.

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Speaker 3: You know.

00:12:24
Speaker 4: It was crazy, like we all had to have a business. We were just active from five am in the morning till late at night, plus running the gas station and blah blah blah.

00:12:34
Speaker 3: And little kids, little kids. We had so much work to do and stuff. But it was I now look back and go.

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Speaker 4: It was sort of a caravancier of adventure and creativity. There was NonStop. However, there's this breakup. I run away and I find mom in the city and she puts me. I was in quite a progressive school. There was like experimental school that we were in. Had a new system and you had to think all d day and so you could learn different creative things. Anyway, long story short, they put me into this kind of boys school. But dad had this thing because he was from the Vietnam War. He did not like hippies, and so he cut our hair really really short, and we had to wear you know, white shirts and ties. Can you imagine in the seventies, you know, when everybody else was wearing pooka shells and like a wine shirts and flip flops and you know, and.

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Speaker 3: Doing we you know, like we got beat up a lot for that.

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Speaker 4: So as soon as I ran away, I grew up my hair, which was crazy curly, and I went to this boys school and you know, obviously you know, hormonal teenage boys banging on their head. And so the US got me basil Brush after a kind of English cartoon character as a sort of oh yeah, just to put me down.

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Speaker 3: So this nickname mas or Basil, bas.

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Speaker 1: Or Basil and you took it on.

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Speaker 4: So I went to hell with that and I went into deed poll and at nineteen, you know what, mark boring and thought, I'm going to call myself Baz Mark two sides to me. One is going to be my kind of brand, Baz, and the Mark's going to be who I am. And I made up the name Basmark. And was that your legal name now or my legal name my passport?

00:14:16
Speaker 3: Since I was nineteen?

00:14:17
Speaker 2: Okay, at ten to fifteen, what were your goals in life?

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Speaker 3: Like?

00:14:24
Speaker 1: What did you want to be when you grew up?

00:14:27
Speaker 3: Well, again, it's going to sound pretentious.

00:14:29
Speaker 1: But you're an artist. You're allowed to dream.

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Speaker 4: That's what I was doing. But I was not only dreaming. I was doing so even at ten, I was doing shows. I have my own radio show. Dad was really supportive of this.

00:14:42
Speaker 1: Wait, how were you when you had a radio show?

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Speaker 4: I was about eleven. I got the eleven years old.

00:14:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:14:48
Speaker 4: I found this old record player and Dad ricked up speakers in the gas station.

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Speaker 3: It was called radio. It was mobile no mobile gas.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I here we are Radio Mlbil and when we come, let's play that great hit one is the loneliest number, because that's the only rest. And then my rather my younger brother would read the sports, you know, and he was like, let's say, not the greatest reader in the world. Well that's enough with the sports. Let's get back to that great hit one is the loneliest number. So it was it was role playing, but I did it and I made little films because Dad met month through photography. He was in the equivalent of the Navy Seals, I guess, you know. He was on the Melbourne, which is an aircraft carry blowing stuff up basically to do landings, and you know, he need really he lived an energy military life. But he was very creative and he was obsessed with photography. So he made me learn how to use a box brown. He wouldn't let me use an SLR like old Kodak and process my own film and footage. And I was making little movies at the same time.

00:15:54
Speaker 2: Okay, so you come from theater culture, of course, and of course you as a director, I'm under the impression that the grass is always greener on the other side, like when you're on one side. Then you know, like I wish I was as much as I complained about touring with the Roots back in the night, you know, like I would do anything, even the towns I hated to go to.

00:16:16
Speaker 1: But of course, when you're doing that.

00:16:17
Speaker 2: You wish, oh man, if I could just live in one city and have.

00:16:21
Speaker 1: A regular job.

00:16:21
Speaker 3: You know, the grass is always green.

00:16:23
Speaker 2: So for you, you know, coming from developing theater, where's your pleasure center?

00:16:30
Speaker 1: Do you like theater better or is it movies?

00:16:34
Speaker 4: You know, I honestly do not consider myself a film director a director of opera. Right now, I've just finished with seeing them making a little train carriage for the people that have the orone express for dining carriage.

00:16:50
Speaker 3: It's going to open in May. We've built what is this. We've got a hotel in Miami.

00:16:54
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:16:55
Speaker 3: I got a little by here in New York.

00:16:56
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:16:59
Speaker 4: You know, I done election campaign edited magazines. I believe in creative adventure. I actually don't define myself by that. It's got to be a creative adventure. And I would say what defines me is that I trade in storytelling and ideas and the medium is always I'm open about it, you know, like often thinks that for the first time when I have my opera company. It was the first time I did opera just because I was fascinated and compelled. Yeah, I've met a lot of music. I learned to produce quite early on. And although I've worked with the greats, you know, like Jay and great great artists, I mean, you know, the Bono's and the Bowies and you know and Elton.

00:17:43
Speaker 2: And I've known that you've produced your soundtracks, which, yeah, I definitely want to get into that.

00:17:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, forty years has passed since.

00:18:03
Speaker 2: I don't want to reduce it to saying Leo Mania, but I mean the spark of the world's obsession with Leonardo DiCaprio. Really, there's always the well I was there in the beginning. I was a day one, but I'm really like I was alive during Romeo and Juliet time, and I'll tell you how much have changed me as a DJ.

00:18:24
Speaker 1: I never knew why, Like I was late.

00:18:29
Speaker 2: Maybe I saw Romeo and Juliet maybe like four months after it came out. Yeah, And I used to always play Young Hearts when free, and suddenly I was like, wow, like young kids are really into Kandy State, and like I must be doing something good. Having no clue how you incorporated music into it. So, like, what are your memories of like just that period of Romeo and Juliet. How did you convince your producers in the movie company that this idea is going to work?

00:19:01
Speaker 1: First of all, did you know it was going to work? Yes, you knew it.

00:19:05
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, So from super to nuts, Like, how give me your reflections of it?

00:19:10
Speaker 4: Well, you know, we used to always make in the days of Blu Ray, we always made the extras. You know, I've been involved in everything, and I think I tell the story. It's there was a big kind of thing in Sun Valley where industrialists would come and so I did a lecture on creativity and blah blah blah, and I tell the story of pitching Romeo and Juliet.

00:19:29
Speaker 3: And I'm a terrible picture.

00:19:30
Speaker 4: And look, I gotta be careful because the exec I had at the time as a dear friend, and you know, he wasn't expecting me to come and see it's a modern day Romeo and Juliet.

00:19:40
Speaker 3: He says, just it's a long story, but I do it terribly.

00:19:44
Speaker 1: Who was the exact pitter?

00:19:45
Speaker 3: Rice?

00:19:46
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, of course.

00:19:47
Speaker 4: And Rice is like, you know, I love Peter, but he was young too, and he was like, oh my god, he hates me telling this story, but I got to tell you. He also without him, there would be no Romeo and Juliet because there's a chapter two. First chapter is I'll do it without going into all the detail. But he says, that's great, but just don't mention its Shakespeare, you know. So I go in and I do my you know, is where like in Imasion and as Gangs and Wound, the lights go on and goes horribly wrong. However, I did what I always do, and it relates a little bit to Epic because I think what Jonathan and I John I Redman, my editor and co producing cro creator on Epic. I always begin by making a kind of tone poem of music, visuals and dialogue that can convey the feeling of what it is I'm trying to make because it's hard to grasp for people. And so at the end of this disastrous hour where Peter Chernan, who is like the head.

00:20:43
Speaker 1: Of Fox then my current boss right.

00:20:46
Speaker 4: Well, mister Jernon, you know, and wonderful, but he just I put the tape on him.

00:20:52
Speaker 3: And they went like, oh, I get it.

00:20:55
Speaker 4: It's kind of Gangs and I went yes, So they gave me a little bit of money, and Leonardo came into it because I sing, I can't make this unless I can find someone who looks like Romeo.

00:21:05
Speaker 3: I saw a picture in a magazine.

00:21:07
Speaker 4: I went, that kid there he looks like and I just thought he was I didn't know he could act. And they said, actually, he's a really amazing young actor. So I go to him.

00:21:17
Speaker 1: So you had no idea about what's eating Gilbert Group or.

00:21:19
Speaker 4: I saw it then after it, wow, it's amazing. So then I go to him and I said, look, why don't you and your dad. I've got enough money to give you both business colass tickets. Why don't you come down to Australia. Don't commit and I We'll do workshops. And that's what I've always done, workshops. Leo being Leo or Dio as I call him, Dio Cash is in the tickets and brings all of his friends with him.

00:21:44
Speaker 3: They fly bucket class, so they all come down and.

00:21:47
Speaker 4: So I dress them all up and put them in the in the test shootings that we do of this, and some of this is actually on the Blu Ray and he's amazing at it. But I'm like doing the makeup myself and you know, and Don's shooting it and all that. So armed with this deal coming down with his dad, and I was sweeping through how.

00:22:04
Speaker 3: We're going to do it.

00:22:06
Speaker 4: We go back and then they see it and they go great, now we're away, except all of a sudden, I'm auditioning the red looking for Juliet and I hear that like, maybe there's another Romeo and Juliet.

00:22:19
Speaker 3: I'm going, no, no, no, no, no, he was for kidding.

00:22:22
Speaker 4: I sit down this story. I just can't give it so epic. Sit down at a restaurant in London. I hear this guy going, I just got up the phone and I talked to this guy. Won't say who it is, but an executive of Big Studio, and he says, they're going to splash that boss lerm and crazy television exploding Romeo and Juliet and do ours another production and like.

00:22:40
Speaker 3: People, you were right there.

00:22:42
Speaker 4: He was behind me at a ca the hell and in London and he leans back and I don't know it was you, no, And I'm saying to see him. I'm sitting I think you're talking about Romeo and Juliet. And I go, I'm so sorry, did mean to bump into you?

00:22:54
Speaker 3: Right?

00:22:55
Speaker 4: I can't tell the rest of the story. It's for a book one day and Moto mine is I ring out? My guys really said yep, but don't worry. They're going to pay you out. But they want to do the other one because it's at the other division of Fox and my Robert Newman says to me, you know what, I'm going to want to not tell bas you said that, because I know he would not.

00:23:18
Speaker 3: You just give it back to us.

00:23:19
Speaker 4: And to his credit, Peter Rice writes this incredible letter that says, when I passed on another Young Auteurs film, you told me it was my job to convince you when something that seemed improbable was worth doing, and because of that they ultimately stuck with mine. And then that happened, and then we went down. It was probably the most romantic and wild and crazy shooting ever we shot in Mexico. It was Leo and then Young Claire. Because Leo was running around, we had our own choppers. And then at some point I get a call saying, look, does she don't want to make this film with Jim Cameron about a big boat that seems, and they'd like you to do you think you get Lea to read the script, which we do.

00:24:05
Speaker 3: And that's a whole other story.

00:24:07
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, now that I'm in the game of clearances, oh yeah, in the nightmare of it. Well, last night I spent two hours writing in the email trying to convince someone to come off a price. How are you able to convince Prince to let you cover when Devi's crib when he's a notorious no or even.

00:24:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, like with so tracks twice And in fact, I was working with Prince on and look bless his dearly departed soul because the man was a beautiful genius. But he was doing We were working on a piece for Gatsby for a real long time and just write at the last minute, just to change the course, and.

00:24:47
Speaker 1: He pulled the Prince.

00:24:49
Speaker 4: It just another story. I can't go into it because it take too long. But end up bringing a young singer called Lana del Ray and st Lana, I really need a song something like this, she says, come back.

00:24:59
Speaker 1: The fact that radio hit was like third to last.

00:25:02
Speaker 3: Yeah on it.

00:25:03
Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, he knew, he knew exactly right before computer blows up.

00:25:08
Speaker 4: There's a book must be written Monday. I love music and I've worked in it a lot, and my young assistant on Romeo and Juliet, we learned to produce together. We made a little record on which it was a song called Sunscreen, which really blows up, and I really learned how to even get on the faders.

00:25:24
Speaker 3: Unfamiliar, you know.

00:25:26
Speaker 4: So then we were preparing for Mulin Rouge and this whole conceit that came up with Craig Bisness I working on it.

00:25:35
Speaker 3: You know, the poet had to be a genius poet.

00:25:37
Speaker 4: But you know, if you say someone's a genius painter and you do your own painting, you look at it.

00:25:42
Speaker 3: Is that genius? I don't know?

00:25:43
Speaker 4: But if it's Picasso, you go, well, the world says it is. So it came up with the preposterous conceit. The preposterous conceit was what if the poet opened his mouth and saying, the hills real live, the sound of music silly, but we all go genius, you know. Now, go back to Romeo and Juliet. When I was writing Romeo and Juliet, Peter showed me bitter Rice showed me yesterday. So randomly the vibe tape that I made haven't seen it for thirty years, and I realized that I would cut that vibe tape to Venus as a boy, some massive attack and the wagner that was from an opera. The film ends with that wagner, and I went, Venus is a boy. I gotta find whoever made this music. That person was called Nelly Hooper. I finally meet Nellie Hooper the student In no way is some pop producer gonna make the music.

00:26:35
Speaker 3: Romeo and Juliet.

00:26:36
Speaker 4: I'm like, well yeah, and not only is it Nelly, it's Craig Armstrong doing strings, and then it's Marius Devrees and we create all those tracks. And Radiohead probably they had talk show hosts had happened, but Radiohead were happening, and I was sawing to Karen Rackman and I went, gee, they've got such a feel. So I ring this young guy called Tom Yaork remember this, And I'm talking to him on the phone and I'm saying, look, we need this end song and just talking about it, and he's like, yeah, yeah, but I'm on tour. And then i'd ring him yeah yeah, but I'm on tour. I think I've got it. We're mixing the movie. We're doing the end credits. We have another song in the end credits. All of a sudden, I get a tap on the door. Guy runs in with a dad tape. You might know what that is, digital tape. Tiny yes, and it says from Tom Debas, I hope I'm not too late. We've literally put it in the machinery. We are just doing the final mix. Ok, right, the film's definitely locked, but I'm layering in the final mix. I'll put the tape in and roll it and that song exit song for a movie cut too. That's how the yeah cut to check this out. Cut to like fifteen years later, I'm talking to Nigel Godridge and later on Johnny Green. Eventually he just uses my house Sydney to write a ballet in at some stage. So that's how I sort of vaguely know Johnny. But cut to Godridge tells me there'd been a bit of an argument between the guys. I don't want to get into their life, and Tom was like, that's it, and then goes downstairs and he goes, oh, I got to write.

00:28:16
Speaker 1: That damn song.

00:28:18
Speaker 3: So he's doing it. Johnny Green when comes down.

00:28:21
Speaker 4: So doing a bit of basing it, they do that song and then they're write the next one, and that becomes okay, computer, that's the first song. That's what I was told, told you, I told you these stories are so long.

00:28:35
Speaker 1: I had this one for the ages.

00:28:37
Speaker 3: I know, I got a book.

00:28:39
Speaker 1: Okay, so with Mullan Rouge and Gatsby publishing. When I watch it, of course, I mom, was, how do you clear that?

00:28:47
Speaker 3: I gotta tell you that here's the breakthrough.

00:28:48
Speaker 1: Give me the most nightmare story of will.

00:28:50
Speaker 4: But let me tell you the break the key, the key that opens the golden chest. So the idea of Molin Rouge is the preposterous conceit is that, you know, the just genius music comes out of his mouth. We decide that the genius music's got to be iconic music that you like. Now I didn't just go here's my record collection. Let's read the story. Greig Bits and I and the music team would get spreadsheets and go, well, how do we convey love? You know or your song? For example, Mark Gift is my song and this one's for you. Great line for a poet, right, and then you know elephant love Medley. I mean we have beatles in that. We have you know, for Collins, we have you know, Dolly pardon. So I'm going on, I've got to stop this because publishing companies are saying, no way.

00:29:38
Speaker 1: Was it expensive. I feel like you were the beginning.

00:29:41
Speaker 3: Oh wait, people.

00:29:42
Speaker 1: See in the power of oh, we can charge.

00:29:44
Speaker 4: I have to tell you the magic key. The magic is this. I'm like, oh, this is never gonna happen. Publishing companies are like, this is a grand rite.

00:29:52
Speaker 3: You know.

00:29:52
Speaker 4: Sound of music, la la la la. So I think, well, the key song right now we need is your song by Elton John. So I get a note through to Elton John. I fly from Australia. He says, I loved me. Of course I want to know all about it. I fly from Australia all the way to England. I got a temperature of one hundred and one thousand and I almost I'm sorry, mister Elton, but I'm so sick.

00:30:16
Speaker 3: I don't want to get you.

00:30:16
Speaker 4: See, he gets, don't worry about that done and come over to see him and just dine and hear about it. So I come over over the door Nelton, who actually go on to become a great friend of the family, and we even write a song together one day, but he just goes, I show him the idea. He says, done, this is the most brilliant, genius idea. I'm going to tell everybody to do it. And Elton kind of leads the charge. And from that horse that got you yep, And on that moment on, I'm forever grateful to him. And from that moment on he kind of spreads the words and I realize, what you got to do is go straight to the artist. And so I just go straight to the artist. I was so inaminate of David Bowie. I just he was growing up. Rite to David Baya. I get a phone call one day, says and he says, David Bowie here and he goes, look, I think, which is mean?

00:31:04
Speaker 3: I kind of like the side.

00:31:06
Speaker 4: And it goes, you know, I show him the film and on one of them he says, well, from one translator to another, I think I want to help you. And then that was it. It was the artist, and there was never such a thing as a mashup. You know, if you think of Elevant Love Medley, that didn't exist because publishers wouldn't allow it.

00:31:24
Speaker 3: So he do molon route.

00:31:25
Speaker 4: By the way, shout out to Jimmy Ivan because I go and see Jimmy Ivan and I got the record deal with.

00:31:32
Speaker 3: Him, and he goes, you know, I see this guy buys. He comes in in his suit and we have tea. And it's a crazy idea, but I'm going to throw the dice. It says, when you.

00:31:42
Speaker 4: Know I love Jimmy, I think like Uncle Jimmy, and I tell you something else amazing.

00:31:48
Speaker 3: He says, hey, by the way, I got this song, you might be interested in it. Gives it.

00:31:51
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure he gives it to me on a cassette. He says, maybe you can use it, and I put it in see young rapper kid you know from Detroit, and it goes, my name is, my name is, and again, well that's really cool. I couldn't find any place for it though, you know. But then when I wanted to do our Lady Mama Lade, and I was working there with this great music supervising team and these two wonderful women, I had this idea that maybe it should be sung by like capop was very early then, like one really great capop artist, one really great say American you know, from each country.

00:32:26
Speaker 3: Okay, see yeah, but too complicated. I couldn't get to do this.

00:32:29
Speaker 4: So we said, well, what about one rapper? And there was this young ruddy powerse singer called Pink. She just arrived in and then Christina Aguilera was like the blom and then we got together with Ron Missy Elliott producing, got in the studio with Missy's so fantastic. Missy was like, there was this crazy moment you like this when we got a rough of it down, Rock is doing her and we got it, and like we're so excited because we've got the latest MacBook Pro or something with an outboard on the disc and Aunt couldn't get the disc going. Missisico hell with that? She rings hello, this is Missy Elliott. Leave a message and she puts the song on her answering service right and then leaves.

00:33:10
Speaker 3: You know.

00:33:11
Speaker 4: So then we work with Ron Fair all of his studios. Jimmy really put money behind it, and well the rest of that song is history because it reigned supreme all some along.

00:33:21
Speaker 2: I think it's just enough to direct, let alone, script supervised write it. I'm certain that you're also in the editing process, micromanaging and all that stuff.

00:33:35
Speaker 1: But you also produce your soundtracks.

00:33:38
Speaker 2: Why put yourself through that stress?

00:33:44
Speaker 4: Actually the music is probably the most enjoyable part for me, because you know, writing is so full of deep psychological struggling. Shout even me writing this. You have high good days and bad days. The research is.

00:34:01
Speaker 3: Amazing that I love. I live it.

00:34:02
Speaker 4: I live it like Jean Dark at the moment, I've taken every step She's ever taken.

00:34:06
Speaker 2: How long do you give yourself time to do research before you even start coming up with the script or.

00:34:14
Speaker 4: Well, you know how many films I've made. That gives you some idea. But I could research forever and never make the movie. You really, yeah, I just love it, like even now.

00:34:25
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, come to Elvis.

00:34:26
Speaker 4: Like I had an office in Gracelands for eighteen months. I lived in the South for like nearly two years.

00:34:32
Speaker 1: Coming, okay, so you developed the Elvis movie.

00:34:35
Speaker 4: At the research, for sure, I was living in Memphis so much and sort of undercover, you know what I mean, Like we got to crazy music things, and I had this house and Nashville, and I guess because I'm from a tiny country town, I can't make films about a tiny country town. So well, I cool one day. But I love doing habit worlds, and I love to build worlds and live inside them. So I build the world around the world to make the movie. But before I do that, it has to be within me so much I literally have to live it.

00:35:20
Speaker 1: So how does Elvis enter your life?

00:35:23
Speaker 4: Well, as a kid, his entry was we had the gas station, and we had restaurant and a farm.

00:35:32
Speaker 3: But for a while we rang the local.

00:35:33
Speaker 4: Cinema and every Sunday we had a matinee, an Elvis matinee. So I'd be seeing the movies, you know, the Elvis movies. And I was ten, but going, this guy's cool. I mean, yoga is what yoga does. I didn't know what yoga was, but he just seemed cool. Now, probably those movies aren't as school as I thought they were. But then later on in the seventies, I was doing Bored and dancing and he dropped Burning Love and that song. I got my grandmother to make a kind of Elvis jumpsuit, and I'd go when we're doing the competition and say, hey, do you think, hey, mate, do you think you could like drop Burning Love? It will give him being. But then he sort of, you know, I go on my life and I open out all sorts of music opera, and you know the Michaels and the Bowiees and the you know ac DC's.

00:36:23
Speaker 3: I've never had any or interest in all music. He was always there.

00:36:28
Speaker 4: And then I think music biography came my way a lot. But I always think with biography of any kind, it isn't just ABCD. You use the person's life to explore a larger theme. As in Amadaez Amadas you learn a lot about Mozart.

00:36:46
Speaker 3: Is that exactly who Mozart is?

00:36:48
Speaker 4: I don't know, but it's definitely exactly what jealousy is, what happens between Salieri, who goes, God, I did everything right and you put genius in that little pig.

00:37:00
Speaker 3: That's what that movie is about.

00:37:02
Speaker 4: So I always thought, Gee, if you're going to do a music bio, pick Elvis's life is such a canvas for America, for the fifties, the sixties and the seventies, for the good, the bad, and the ugly. And then as I learned more and more about Colonel Tom Parker and the relationship between the great seller, the great carnival Hucksta who's looking for a carnival act whose name was never Colonel, never Tom, never Parker, and this kind of orphan like creature that is Elvis, so unique, so shy, compassionate, ashamed of his father going to jail, his whole upbringing in one of the few white houses in the black community. I took a long time before I found this guy, Sam Bell. We thought he had passed go down to two below. One day I find him and that was a breakthrough for me, and I made extensive video of him telling the story about how Elvis grew up in the community, how his grandparents adored him, and about I put it in the movie that bit where they run off to the duke joints in the Gospel tent. I just put it that bade him in the movie. So you know this rise and fall, this kind of both of them. The Colonel was a genius in his way, the genius of selling, could sell you on anything, suck the air out of any room he was in. And Elvis's genius was the ability to take any song and make it his own, like in epic that you see in this footage. We found the way he takes like a Simon and Garf uncle folk song and turns it into a gospel power house. I mean, in this film you get to see him actually doing it because he actually, like Michael, he would sing the song lines, you know, and the interpretations. He wasn't just you know, he didn't have an orchestra coming in, let's do it this way.

00:38:59
Speaker 3: He didn't have a star. He came up with the looks.

00:39:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:39:03
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say to me, the rehearsals were the most fascinating.

00:39:07
Speaker 1: You're revealing part of it, especially.

00:39:09
Speaker 2: When it was just stripped down, when it was just the rhythm section, and eventually he adds everyone. But even in watching the final presentation, when you know, I try.

00:39:19
Speaker 4: To count just over seventy six songs, yeah, I just about one hundred and ten publishings, because as you know, one song can have length.

00:39:30
Speaker 1: Three Beatles songs. Yeah, also's your friend.

00:39:35
Speaker 4: I don't want to name, but I mean actually, actually Paul and Beatles in general very generous towards Elvis. And you can see now this mythology that Elvers sudden like, look how much respect and love he has for the Beatles.

00:39:51
Speaker 1: I was shot.

00:39:51
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I've read stories about when they first met each other and all that stuff, but much like Peter Jackson's doc of them just sit around rehearsing.

00:40:00
Speaker 4: By the way, Peter Jackson so wonderful. I go down to New Zealand and he and his team work to bring this imagery back to why it's so astounding on Imax, I mean it's opening, by the way, on last week we did amazing numbers. And what was amazing was so many older folk said, Ooh, I went and saw it on Imax. I've never been to Imax before. I see now why it's worth it. But just to be clear, there is no AI in this film. I know, there is no visual effect except the effect Elvis has on his audience. It's just Peter Peter and the love of restoring footage and being projected at the highest possible quality, and that's what you're seeing, and you're seeing Elvis.

00:40:42
Speaker 1: Was it shadow on sixteen?

00:40:44
Speaker 4: No, So this is why it's so amazing, because the Beatles just passed. It's crazy, the Beatles stuff with Jake. By the way, I consider what Peter did with the Beatles. If you ever want to understand collective creativity, that there is no higher watermark. That is the best film to explain how a group of creatives get together and make something because it isn't made perfect, you know.

00:41:08
Speaker 3: It's like I'm Paul going the long a winding. What do you got for me to doing?

00:41:11
Speaker 1: You know? Right like that?

00:41:13
Speaker 4: And then the tensions in the room and all of that, the music above them all whereas and I think Paul someone said this, you know the thing you know, with with of us, you know, at least we had each other, we'd be stuck in rooms. But he was on his own, you know, And so I think the great loneliness. But I think that you know, Peters stuff has all shot sixteen mil well we found was animorphic thirty five shot with kleag lights. Let me explain, there's a thirty five mel negative. Yes, anamorphic is where they squeeze the image squeezed by an optical, which means when it expands is at a higher quality not quite seventy emil but on the way there and so all of that really primary stuff of im just on stage, like where people are going, oh my god, I feel like I'm actually in the concert.

00:42:06
Speaker 3: That plus the work Peter does makes.

00:42:08
Speaker 4: It feel I mean, if you've seen it on IMAX, it's even I don't listen to me. Just go on YouTube and put in epic and have random Bieble tell you what that experience.

00:42:20
Speaker 3: Who went in very cynically.

00:42:22
Speaker 2: I was going to tell you that the first three minutes even I was like askeful. A bit later, all right, well, yeah, I saw it was a movie already, so like what else am I? I'm not going to be moved, And I gotta say, just the whole creative approach to doing it, to having.

00:42:39
Speaker 1: Him narrate it.

00:42:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like the same way that well, I mean with Aretha's Amazing Greece, there was no narration. It's almost like you're flying the room and you get to observe it. But it left me with so many questions because with his eyes and the thing was.

00:42:56
Speaker 1: You didn't try to clean it up whatever.

00:42:59
Speaker 2: Like there were moments where I just absolutely wondered, like where he was in his life at that time, because you know, like my introduction to Elvis was almost as an eight nine year older seeing the white jump suit and everything like I saw like comedic, almost caricature. So I never took that period seriously, seriously, absolutely, and ninety nine percent of my memory of that period was always comic bas and I didn't realize how cathartic that performing was for him at that time period. And so like, first of all, how many how many cameras were documenting this?

00:43:48
Speaker 4: Actually that's really good. I one of the things we did it was shout out I think I get my numbers wrong. I'm wrong with numbers on everything else to the studio when it comes to budget. But it was shot out of four nights, I think it was four six, and they was shocked. Why these are anamorphic cameras. So actually it wasn't like they just put the show out enrolled, like these are giant cameras with giant lights, which is why it looks so good.

00:44:09
Speaker 3: The image is so good because you.

00:44:10
Speaker 4: Got pounding light in there, which I mean sometimes I had to stop the show and reloading things. And so that's why the audience is a little bit like, wow, they're really aware. I mean, Elvis would be riffing between things. You know, we're making sorry folk women in Hollywood film the nights, so sorry, you know, but so it's over four nights. It's cleig lights. But I mean, you know, what's going in out of focus? Sometimes that's a focus puller in a manual focus using calculations of numbers to try and follow him in ECU close ups like this, they're not blow ups ECU. So they're trying to find sharps what we call sharps on the eyes. I mean that is what that's what they call widow making, you know, that job of focus pulling mechanically like that on a live show.

00:44:54
Speaker 3: I mean, that can take you out.

00:44:56
Speaker 1: I saw no cameramen on stage, so like well.

00:44:58
Speaker 4: Every if you look at it, go and see it again on imax, you'll see we left the cameras in sometimes you'll see them, you're so that is a testament, though, here's a testament to the fact that when Elvis is on camera, you don't see anything but him, right, but they're there. You can see them. The sixteen mil you see guys running around whole after thing. The tour is shot in sixteen mil. That's more like kind of cinema verite. That's more like shooting in Vietnam or something, you know, chasing the subject by the way. Sorry, sorry you said something. And I would like to see if this is illuminating. I know why you think about this as a joke, period and there's absolute ample reason to think that. But you know, in the film, Elvis says, yes, sir, I'm going to go to England, I'm going to go to Europe. I'm going to play Japan. When he goes, he builds that big show, against everyone's expectations, with all the different gospel scenes of the big band, with the expectation of doing one tour around the States and going on a global war tour. He does the thing, comes back, he does it in Vegas again, goes around, comes back Vegas again, comes around in Vegas again, Vegars again, as again until he dies, and really he's like a bird, you know, when a bird is hitting a glass window and can't see the glass. He becomes more and more dispirited. There's all sorts of reasons. Oh, you know, security, security. I mean, I touch on it in the film, and.

00:46:29
Speaker 3: I really believe.

00:46:32
Speaker 4: I can't say it would have ended differently, but I really believe if Elvis had gone on that tour around the world.

00:46:38
Speaker 2: And he has never left the United States, he went in there, he went during his service to Germany, wasn't allowed to sing.

00:46:46
Speaker 4: He ran away to Paris three times. And I'm saying that because we're about to open in Paris, and he loved Paris. But he never did a world tour and never say outside the US.

00:46:55
Speaker 3: No, he did not.

00:46:57
Speaker 4: And I believe that those wings, those musical wings, trapped inside that golden cage of Vegas, never being able to spread, certainly wore him down to a point where his spirit was And what we think of in the white jumpsuit tends to be year three or year four, or you know in the movie where he sings unchained melody.

00:47:21
Speaker 3: The body is so corrupt, but the voice still saws.

00:47:24
Speaker 4: And the point I'm getting at is the footage we found is the footage of him at his prime. I will tell you something that thrilled me yesterday thrilled me. We randomly play this amazing show on YouTube. Someone plays me, this smart woman has a show where teens, I mean young kids like you know, fourteen fifteen, never heard of Elvis, very diverse crowd. And they, you know, they do that stuff where they play the film epic and they're reacting and the kids are you know, they're funny, and oh Elvis, they know nothing about him. The first thing they look at they go, wow, I love these costumes.

00:48:02
Speaker 3: How cool?

00:48:03
Speaker 4: He's so on, he's so now, and the passionate singing and the gospel saying like he's kind of singing gospel, but it's pop. I mean what they said. Their reaction boyed me because I realized that when you say that Elvis had this ability to kind of channel a singularity, you know, the joke thing that happens happens because of the spirit being worn down. But in fact, what's in front of you, I can't tell you. And I'm not doing this to encourage people to go out this weekend on which we're on.

00:48:40
Speaker 1: You know, I want them to.

00:48:41
Speaker 4: Nineteen hundred spears, But I do, I do, And what I want is someone who likes Elvis to badger someone who does has no interest Nevers what's about? Because I had someone on the interview of me the other day said, I'm gonna give you full I have zero interest in Nevers Bresley. In fact, I actually kind of dislike him. He said, this film's miracle because they come out. I'm converted. I don't know what's happened to me. I don't know what's happened to me.

00:49:05
Speaker 1: Look, I'm from hip hop, you know, we were raised on fight the power.

00:49:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know what, And it took long for me.

00:49:12
Speaker 1: To just sort of.

00:49:15
Speaker 2: You know, and I thought about it too, like, well, you know, who's going to tell the Roy Hamilton story or you know, like you know the people.

00:49:20
Speaker 3: Have about Roy.

00:49:21
Speaker 4: By the way, listen, I am not here to defend Elvis. I was very quiet about it in the making of the film because I dealt was in a very cold mechanical way, because I felt, let me tell this.

00:49:34
Speaker 1: Story, let the story speak for itself.

00:49:35
Speaker 4: Yes, but I can now tell you I mean the look, I got all respect to fight the power. But the artist that said that line in that song has come on and said, well I just said that, Yes I know, and I can now tell you I have been with enough of black artists, people from the community, you know, done the work, la la la. If there's one thing Elvis presently, Look, there's this woman still one of the great sweets.

00:50:01
Speaker 3: Still alive, sent me before message.

00:50:03
Speaker 4: But the year before there was a singer whose daughter's name was Whitney Houston. And when Whitney met Elvis, she just went like you know what, he walk in the room. You don't say hello, mister Elvis, and you just stare like I can tell you. Q Tip said to me. The one thing in the community is there's definitely you got to respect the artist. There's no question in the community. And when it comes to Roy Hamilton, that story is not always told accurately. Because Roy Hamilton was dying from TB or had TB. He was in the same studio. Guys around him said Elvis had never been more nervous than when he met Roy Hamilton. He was his idol, and he gave Roy a song to record that Colonel nobody wanted to give you know her, No, No, I think actually another one won't to me, Gloria. I can't remember actually, but he's not Don't let Girl. Although I love that song. I mean I used to hear done Go and think it was always but of course it was Elvis channeling Roy, Elvis channeling you know, upper singers, like he says, he says in the darkhout. I love the Mexican sound. I love all music, dude.

00:51:14
Speaker 2: Like when I did Summer Soul, my favorite footage was watching the fourth camera, which was strictly just the audience reaction. Man, I wanted so much more audience reaction because there's one point where you do the perspective of watching the audience. I looked and there's four black people in the corner, and I mean they're getting down, like yo, this.

00:51:41
Speaker 1: Is my jam And I was gobsmacked.

00:51:44
Speaker 2: I was like wow, like but just to watch the audience reaction to him, to me, was one of the most fascinating revelatory And it's almost like the spectrum of every type of person in that audience.

00:52:01
Speaker 1: Yes, husband's sitting there.

00:52:02
Speaker 2: Because their wives are like da da da d like literally every every spectrum of life is captivated by this. But then there's also like the backstage footage. Okay, so before Sammy Davis talks to him, do you know the two gentlemen, the two black guys that are speaking.

00:52:19
Speaker 1: Who are there? Now?

00:52:20
Speaker 4: Let me tell you that because he said you coped all my moves, right, And I got to tell you. I know, I've had my research Guystom Wigan. I know that they were artists of the time and right, but let me just explain something about that. By the way, that footage has existed before, but the sound hasn't. And we found the dialogue, yes, right, Okay, so I've had the guys trying to find it out exactly there, and forgive me, because I'm sure they're hugely respected artists. But we only just started to break down exactly who's in that room, right, because we only just got it right at the end. So but the short answer is, I don't actually know, but I've always been amazed in the Elvis goes and then Sammy's gone, You're reving it up, you go going and Elvis's.

00:53:03
Speaker 1: Gone, and you know what Elvis cote to do?

00:53:07
Speaker 3: What when he.

00:53:08
Speaker 4: Says, I'm Fats. You wanna hear a publishing story? When he says, I'm well, listen to him. I'm Fats Domino. Right, he goes on and seeing a Fats Domino song, but he sings for about eight seconds and it was so expensive. I went, I can't put it in. But Fats used to make him breakfast in Vegas in the morning. And when Elvis never caught himself the king, And in fact, I've got it in the movie.

00:53:32
Speaker 3: We don't have film of.

00:53:33
Speaker 4: It, but it's in the press. When they say you're the king of rock roll says I'm not the king of rock and roll, says Fats, come down here. This is the king of rock and roll, right, I just I'm not trying to defend Elvis in a specific way. But Sissy Houston says, there's no way there just wasn't says something like, I never ever this idea of him having you know, that particular case was back in the fifties. He said, I was never in that town, and anyone who knows me, that's not me. And you want my theory, there was a lot of extreme mists trying to separate over us from the black community. They were trying to and I think that's where that came from. But that's just my theory. I've tried to be the devil's advocate. Yeah, but there's just it's the opposite.

00:54:20
Speaker 2: I will say this is probably the greatest case to really study it, just to see human moments. The thing when he rattles one of the sweet inspirations, like, yeah, he's joking with him and okay, so when you're watching all the footage, yeah, is it that loose to the point where they don't even have set lists?

00:54:52
Speaker 3: Okay, let me, I gotta explain something too.

00:54:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, And by the way, with the sweets, we couldn't put everything in.

00:54:59
Speaker 3: It took so much labor to get it at this level.

00:55:01
Speaker 4: I got footage of him just in the corner and he's sitting there with the sweets and may I just he's talking about and so blah blah blah.

00:55:09
Speaker 3: We had to go back. Oh yeah, well they've got it. No, he was with another fella.

00:55:12
Speaker 4: It could have been for anybody's at an office hanging talking.

00:55:18
Speaker 1: Now, what was your original cut? How long was you.

00:55:22
Speaker 3: Longer? If I say it now, they released the cut? Release the cut?

00:55:26
Speaker 1: Do you have a longer cut? Yeah?

00:55:28
Speaker 4: We start by ballooning out, but we had to. We wanted it to be stay on point. I was telling the story, but I want to explain something. I'm not going to say. We have a friend. He's a living musical.

00:55:40
Speaker 3: Icon and yeah, a band actually I know quite well know.

00:55:45
Speaker 4: But we talk a lot about e us because he really really interested in was going to do Elvistro himself, and he's been a great help.

00:55:53
Speaker 3: He said to me, you know what.

00:55:56
Speaker 4: I used to rehearse my steps like I'd be influenced even work with a choreographer.

00:56:03
Speaker 3: Other great. Few icons swim in the fame level of Elvis.

00:56:08
Speaker 4: We know who they are, but they rehearsed Elvis would get in there rehearse those favorite songs.

00:56:14
Speaker 3: Now, I think you know how funny he is in this film, Yeah, and goofy.

00:56:17
Speaker 1: He has a sense of humor and he's really goofy, right.

00:56:20
Speaker 4: I think he's doing it because he's so striking to look at, and he's so musical. He's disarming everyone. And what happens is they never know what he's going to do on stage. Ronnie Tutt no idea what he's going to do, so the eyes glued to him, and so you know, he says early on, he goes, well, I just do what I feel out there. Always have You see, he doesn't have steps rehearsed, he doesn't stand in front of mirror. He just gets possessed. He becomes the music. And then in doing that, almost in a religious state, he gets all sort of wound up. Everybody else gets swept up, and they're all watching him. You don't know how many rounds he's going to do it. The end of a suspicious mind. You know he's doing that drum. His body is the conductor.

00:57:05
Speaker 1: He goes in the punch, yes exactly, yes.

00:57:07
Speaker 4: And the reason he does that is, you know, that's the only way he gets everybody together.

00:57:11
Speaker 3: And but because they're all doing it on stage, the audience are having the same experience.

00:57:16
Speaker 4: So it's a unique stage energy and presence.

00:57:20
Speaker 3: It's unique.

00:57:20
Speaker 2: That's why I said, watching this footage to me, I'm watching a human being in his happy place and a very cathartic method where it's just because even with Okay, I know we're talking a lot of inside pace, Paul, Now you guys are going to have to see this film so he can see what we're It's almost like the director's commentary without the film with you, dude.

00:57:46
Speaker 1: No music.

00:57:46
Speaker 2: The thing that I'm obsessed about, well one is the mix sounds pristine.

00:57:52
Speaker 3: Now.

00:57:52
Speaker 2: I watched it three times. The first time I watched just to count the microphones. The drums are only Mike, Yeah, I let me explain how many tracks.

00:58:03
Speaker 3: Let me explain. I'll do this. I'll try and do this efficiently.

00:58:05
Speaker 1: Yes.

00:58:05
Speaker 4: So, I don't know if I already said this, but I began by thinking there was this. Ernst Jurgenstein is a scientist of all Elvis things. He tells me there might be a forgotten reel of the Vegas Show in nineteen seventy I could use in the original film I'm shooting. I have the money to send someone literally into the salt mines in Kansas City, right where MGM's negatives are kept, because one hundred thousand dollars to go looking for this one reel suddenly a bit like Raiders of the Loss.

00:58:36
Speaker 1: It cost one hundred thousand just to look for it.

00:58:39
Speaker 3: It was expensive.

00:58:40
Speaker 4: It costs money because you got to go down, you got to go through the rooms.

00:58:44
Speaker 3: They kick the door in. That says Elvis or whatever that is. I wasn't there.

00:58:47
Speaker 4: I just get photographs and it's not one reel. It's sixty five boxes marked Elvis nineteen seventy the tour sixteen mile. And at the same time, Angie Markesy at Graysland comes in to the possession of never before seen emel So then we start to scan it, but no sound.

00:59:05
Speaker 3: No sound, Oh, so what are you thinking?

00:59:08
Speaker 4: So first of all we bring it back to Warners and it's smelling of vinegar, which means it's about to disintegrate. So John o'reben and I convinced Warners to scan it. We get it scanned. I do not use it in the movie. I finished the movie. What are we going to do with this gold? Put it back in the salt mines. No, we've got to make something special. So then we start trying to find the sound. We find mag tape and we'll try and keep it simple. Mag tape is when you're doing rough cuts, you use mag tape. So that's good because Elvis's vocal mostly almost ninety percent is good. The band running tut good, the band pretty damn good. Sometimes bit off mic, but the driving, by the way, fantastic, right, I'll get to that. Sometimes the sweets inspiration's not good enough, We've got extra track. Sometimes the orchestration badly micd like the orchestra was.

00:59:59
Speaker 3: The hardest thing.

01:00:00
Speaker 4: So actually the orchestration I couldn't tell, but my guys could because my team had worked on Elvis.

01:00:08
Speaker 3: Now during the make of Elves Eva McHugh.

01:00:11
Speaker 4: Who's my mixer, we found two knives you know what neves are, right, Okay, desks and we got so used to actually taking original Elvis tracks. By the way, I was with RCA, so I had amazing rob Sanschino santos Man. I mean he would give me take sixty and fifty two where Elvis goes boom, and so we start building the track but we realize if we make it as if Elvis comes to you in a dream, oh, and then breakthrough moment. We open one box and there's a Naga tape in it. Nagaria is like you used for sixteen mil and it's Elvis talking really unguarded about his life.

01:00:50
Speaker 3: And then we go, wait, that's what we got to do. Get out of the way.

01:00:54
Speaker 4: Let Elvis just tell his story and then we'll use the music as if it's in a kind of a dream skin.

01:01:00
Speaker 3: There's a bit of an interview.

01:01:02
Speaker 4: You see him and he's very bit tired looking in the sixteen mel and he says, look, I'm too tired. I'll do this tomorrow. He comes back, I don't want me on camera. So this audio is about forty minutes of him just talking about his life, but really unguarded because he's not on camera. Then starts us going to really private collectors who and I respect them, don't want even credits in the film don't sell. And we start asking them, look, we really need him saying this, have you got this bit? Sometimes there were car park things. I got to stop saying this because they reckon I might get whacked. And money exchanged hands there's a huge black market in Elvis stuff.

01:01:43
Speaker 3: I know, and a lot of it was missing. And all that.

01:01:46
Speaker 4: We start to build his storytelling now with the music. Yes, for example, sometimes I had to sweeten the orchestrations, so he did that. It's definitely I was his voice the time. Sometimes we might have to use the recording, but it's off the stage.

01:02:03
Speaker 3: It's I can tell you. His mic technique is like no other. He's never out of Chune. Was never out of Chune.

01:02:09
Speaker 1: Was there ever like this before monitors are on stage.

01:02:12
Speaker 3: I never had.

01:02:13
Speaker 4: He never had monitors. In fact, they used to put it through the damn sound system in the thing.

01:02:18
Speaker 3: I don't know.

01:02:19
Speaker 4: I mean, all I can tell you is that's primary material. However, give an example, we have this one bit of him singing O Happy Day and the sweets are a bit off Mac and we want to do We always going what would Elvis do? We want this in like five to one, five seven, you know, like you're there. We wanted Imax, We want the best. So I remember when we were doing Elvis the film, being told the story by Sam Bell, how he would sneak into Easttreek Church and watch Mahalia Jackson in a black gospel choir, and this was so powerful on him. So we thought, well, given we can't use that, what if we make the dream of Elvis singing O Happy Day come true? Rings Shannon's Saunders who has the cost of a choir in Nashville, and he records our Happy Day and we put Elvis and them together.

01:03:07
Speaker 3: So that's a dream beat.

01:03:09
Speaker 1: Nice, all right?

01:03:10
Speaker 4: But some stuff is just straight off the six team. How great they're are, that's straight off. That's straight off the desk.

01:03:15
Speaker 2: Were there any conflicts caught on tape? Because the thing is that for me, it's a nightmare one. It's like, you got the rhythm section to worry about. But then it's two sets of background singers. There's the sweets inspiration and right and his guys and yeah, I see.

01:03:34
Speaker 4: And by the way, they're a vocal group on their own. And then we have Kathy Kathy and she is a high soprano. Right, yeah, but anyway, you're right, we've got and we've got you know what, We've got James Burton on guitar, and you know, Ronnie Tat was like, oh do I want a drum with Elvis goes in He says this is the coolest guy, I mean, right, you know.

01:03:56
Speaker 2: The thing I was fascinated was the rhythm sections seem like their own club. Yep and Sweet Inspirations seem like their own clubs so tight, and Elvis's Guy seem like their own club. But I rarely see them all as a cohesive unit.

01:04:09
Speaker 1: But yet it works.

01:04:10
Speaker 3: But didn't you see.

01:04:11
Speaker 4: Look, we didn't put a lot of it in there because we had to keep the rhythm moving forward.

01:04:14
Speaker 3: But do you see the bit.

01:04:15
Speaker 4: Where he's doing no more woa and he starts to sing let's go back to the epedeo there, yeah, and we want to oscillate, and then he sings the top line and they follow him, you.

01:04:26
Speaker 1: See, Yeah, And they just follow him.

01:04:28
Speaker 4: And that is how he orchestrated. He orchestrated by singing the lines. And that was also how everybody was just watching his body. I mean, tut will tell you he was just basically watching how he wriggled, you know, and he knew how to bring it in and bring it out. And the cohesiveness is Elvis's physical body. That is the joining point. He's on stage and by the way, you saw the energy you see coming off that screen. Yes, by the way, his energy is the same in rehearsals.

01:05:05
Speaker 3: And by the.

01:05:05
Speaker 1: Way I can tell the difference.

01:05:06
Speaker 3: He did it three times a day.

01:05:08
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell the difference, could not tell the difference.

01:05:10
Speaker 4: He was not marking it. You know, rehearsals sometimes people just going like, okay, we're doing No.

01:05:14
Speaker 3: No, he was not marking it.

01:05:17
Speaker 2: Do you know if there were set lists at all? Because the thing is he calls the songs, Hey, let's do da da da da, And I know they.

01:05:24
Speaker 3: Have a nut.

01:05:26
Speaker 4: By the way, they had a bunch of songs. There's a bit. I think we might have taken it out forgive me. Oh no, I think he says. You know, they're driving in the back of the car, and I think he goes, you don't quite pick it up because we just if we left it in, it's just because it was good. And he says, you know what, I called for wash my hands in muddy waters. And they're going, well, they didn't hear me, And he goes, did you tell them?

01:05:51
Speaker 3: Yeah? I told him, so did you tell yourself?

01:05:53
Speaker 4: They make a joke and they go over it, but you can see a serious he's going, I called for wash my hands in muddy waters and they didn't hear me. So you what abput When he goes he goes all right, bridge and you'll all see him go like bridge, that's a giant climb. But he goes bridge and they're into it, maanaa and they're in and I think that's he says it.

01:06:13
Speaker 3: I don't want he says at the very beginning.

01:06:15
Speaker 4: You know, for the audience, it's new every night, and I don't want to get comfortable, and I don't want them to get comes.

01:06:21
Speaker 3: It's a bit scary.

01:06:22
Speaker 4: I have stage for it every night, and I don't want them to get comfortable. So, having worked with all sorts of great musicians, up and coming, young ones, great icons, generally speaking, you have the show worked out, you have the set list. You might mix it up now and then, but it's tight. No, no, no, this was about to quote the man.

01:06:46
Speaker 3: I just do what I feel I always have.

01:06:50
Speaker 2: Well, look, I mean you've from starters. I mean this can go on for nine hours. You've covered Shakespeare, fitzgeriald Elvis, hip hop in the Bronx.

01:07:05
Speaker 3: By the way, one day we'll talk about that.

01:07:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, to say this to you, that whole experience because you know, people wandering about Raymond Juliet and there's a story. I mean, I mean, I hardly ever make stuff, but that's that journey on doing that. I didn't set out to even do it. I just thought that story should be told, and then I got thrown into it because the only way to do it was, like I really really involved.

01:07:30
Speaker 3: You remember that story, that story? You know that you want to know music.

01:07:34
Speaker 4: I think in my life by accident, I've covered music from the operating period, music from the thirties, jazz, the jazz age music, then from the seventies, right, you know, and with Elvis music from the fifties. You know, Like, my life's been a musical history lesson and I'm still learning.

01:07:56
Speaker 2: Would you ever challenge yourself to a project that has new musical elements whatsoever?

01:08:03
Speaker 3: Sure, but it'd be boring for me.

01:08:08
Speaker 4: Hey, we'll do one on to get down one day.

01:08:15
Speaker 2: The Quest Love Show is hosted by Me Mere quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean g Bryan Calhoun and Me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Convoy. iHeart Video support by Mark Canton, logo's graphics and animation by Nick by Loge.

01:08:44
Speaker 1: Additional support by Lance Coman.

01:08:47
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Kathy Brown, Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, break review, and share The Quest Love Show wherever stream your podcast.

01:08:59
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01:09:00
Speaker 2: Socials that's at q LS. Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes, including the Quest Love Supreme Shows, and our podcast archives. The Quest Love Show is a production of iHeart Radium