RIAN JOHNSON - Writer / Director

Team Deakins

James Ellis Deakins

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

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2023

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this episode of the Team Deakins Podcast, writer and director Rian Johnson (KNIVES OUT, STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, LOOPER) speaks with us about his career, and, in a pleasant change of pace, he even asks us a few questions! Rian first shares his childhood memory of attending a screenwriting seminar with his father and how that experience has since informed his craft. We later learn about the father-son story at the heart of LOOPER and reflect on the differences in crew cultures between different countries. We also reminisce over floundering in your 20’s and touch on Rian’s enduring creative partnerships with actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt and cinematographer Steve Yedlin. While discussing THE LAST JEDI, Rian reveals which classic opera inspired the design of the throne room and under what conditions, atypical for effects-heavy filmmaking, enabled Rian and his collaborators to build extensive and grounded sets for its many scenes. Throughout the episode, Rian reflects on his abilities as a filmmaker, and we discuss the beauty of scenes that, despite being irrelevant to the plot, are emotionally correct within a given story.

This episode is sponsored by Fiilex

Instagram: @fiilexled

Recommended Viewing: LOOPER

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to season two of the Team Deacons podcast, a collection of
0:08.8	informal conversations between Roger and James Deacons and a guest.
0:13.0	We never know where the conversation will take us,
0:16.0	so listen in and see where it goes.
0:19.0	This episode is sponsored by Philex, a California-based lighting company with close to 40 years of in-house lighting and expertise.
0:30.0	Philex is known for their LED color franels ranging from the smallest
0:35.4	philex Q3 to the largest philex Q10 and they set the gold standard in the
0:41.5	motion picture industry with precise color science, brightness, and
0:46.2	beam shaping. Philex recently launched a new LED color ellipsoidal called the phylex g3 which can make razor sharp cuts.
0:57.0	Today we're speaking with the director. His credits include Looper, Knives Out, and Glass Onion. We're pleased to welcome
1:07.2	Ryan Johnson. Ryan, thank you for doing this.
1:09.8	Yeah, welcome. Yes, thank you so much for having me. This is a real treat. We'd like to start with our normal question. How did you get to where you are today? Was this something, were you always directing people as a kid?
1:22.0	What was something? people as a kid? Was there something...
1:23.0	Or did you find it later?
1:27.0	No, I think, I mean as a kid I kind of started with writing.
1:32.0	I was always just kind of writing and reading and telling stories and then my my parents weren't in the industry at all.
1:41.0	My dad was in the home building business and we lived in Colorado but yeah I just I and then as I got into junior high I bought a 8 millimeter camera and started making movies with
1:55.4	friends and kind of had that path so had always been telling stories and
1:59.6	just kind of never stopped and slowly realized it was kind of the only thing I was good at.
2:05.7	And...
2:07.7	Did your dad ever think that you should get a real job like follow him in the building trade.
2:13.6	That's what my father did and a hundred years ago.
	...

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