Peter Kohn - Assistant Director

Team Deakins

James Ellis Deakins

Tv & Film, Filmlighting, Deakins, Movies, Filmmaking, Production, Film, Cinematography, Film Interviews

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2021

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

EPISODE 161 - Peter Kohn - First Assistant Director

Team Deakins sits down with first assistant director Peter Kohn (LA LA LAND, BIRDMAN, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN) for a conversation. In this episode, Peter tells us how his father’s career in the industry influenced his aspirations and his taste in films– he loves watching and working on musicals. Peter shares stories from working on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and Birdman, working with Gordon Willis, and doing smoke on the set of Ridley Scott’s The Duellists. Together we talk about what makes a successful assistant director, having a big first day on set, the many factors that dictate the shooting schedule, and even car work. Peter also sneaks in a few questions about 1917!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to the Team Deakin's podcast. This podcast is a dialogue between Roger and James
0:10.5	Deakin's often joined in the conversation by a guest. It's very informal and we never know where
0:17.5	it will go. We're connecting through Zoom so bear that in mind when you hear the audio.
0:23.4	If you'd like to submit a question or topic, please do so by emailing podpod at RogerDeakin's.com.
0:35.0	Today we're speaking with an AD. His list of credits are many and include Pirates of the Caribbean,
0:41.5	Birdman, the greatest showman, and Lalla Land. We're happy to welcome Peter Kohn with us today.
0:47.8	Peter, thank you for doing this. Yes, thank you, Peter.
0:50.8	You're very welcome. I've been excited to do it and I think you're running a such a fantastic
0:55.9	podcast. I hope these things are being preserved somewhere in the academy or it's a great record of
1:02.6	all these film makers. Great, thank you. Great. Well, we'll start with our usual question, which is
1:10.9	how did you get to where you are today? Was this something you always knew you wanted to do?
1:15.6	Or was this something you found later? Tell us. Well, it was early years when we first moved to
1:23.5	England. I was born in Los Angeles. I didn't know what I was going to do at the age of five,
1:29.2	or in fact the age of 10. I think when I was 10, I'd wanted to be like everybody else in England,
1:33.6	Georgie Best, and play football. He supported the right team. No, no, actually Roger, I supported
1:40.7	Chelsea, but Georgie Best had long hair and everybody sort of wanted to emulate him. It was cool,
1:48.1	right? He had the cars and the Dollybirds, so we all wanted to be Georgie Best. He also scored
1:54.2	those fantastic goals. Really, it was the early 60s. My father was in the business and had been
2:02.3	a writer in Hollywood writing for sitcom with teams of people. Early shows like Father Knows
2:10.2	Best and My Little Margie and shows that I've never actually seen. He was assigned to go to Paris
2:17.6	with a team of writers to work and develop a show for Art Book World, who was a columnist at the
2:24.4	time, writing for the Washington Post, he was a humorist and had this famous column that appeared
	...

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