Sam Mendes - Director
Team Deakins
James Ellis Deakins
4.9 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 June 2020
⏱️ 98 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
EPISODE 18 - SAM MENDES - Director
Team Deakins has a fun, free flowing conversation with frequent collaborator, friend, and the Oscar and Tony Award winning Director: Sam Mendes. Spending 15 years as a Theatre Director, Sam made his foray into filmmaking with his award winning debut of American Beauty. He went on to direct a total of nine films in the ensuing years, including; ROAD TO PERDITION, JARHEAD, SKYFALL, SPECTRE and 1917. Sam discusses his journey from theatre to film, the differences between the two roles and what he sees as the most important aspects of being a director. We discuss elements of story, how editing builds tension, and why the idea of a one shot film is much more than meets the eye. A true masterclass between two cinema legends.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi and welcome to the Team Deacons podcast. This podcast is a dialogue between Roger and James Deacons joined |
| 0:16.6 | by Matt Weiman starting from a submitted question and ending who knows where. We're also joined by guests on occasion. |
| 0:27.0 | We're connecting through Zoom so bear that in mind when you hear the audio. |
| 0:31.0 | If you'd like to submit a question, please do so by emailing Pod POD at |
| 0:38.5 | Roger deacons.com. Today we have a special guest with us. He really needs no introduction. We've had the |
| 0:49.4 | pleasure of collaborating with him four times and we hope to do it again in the future. |
| 0:55.0 | His first feature, American Beauty, won him an Oscar. |
| 0:58.6 | You might say, where do you go after that? |
| 1:01.4 | Well, not only has he continued making great films, but they are all different. |
| 1:07.1 | We've worked with him on JARhead, Revolutionary Road, Skyfall in 1917, all very different projects, but all films were really proud of. |
| 1:16.8 | We're very pleased to welcome our friend and collaborator, Sam Mendes. |
| 1:23.4 | Sam, thank you for joining us. |
| 1:25.0 | It's lovely to be here. |
| 1:26.0 | It's lovely to see you both your smiling sun-cist faces |
| 1:30.4 | from the other kind of planet. |
| 1:35.0 | Exactly. So could you tell us how you got to where you are now? |
| 1:38.0 | Did you always want to tell a story? |
| 1:40.0 | I think I got the theater bug a little bit at school when I was about 16. I went to see some plays at Stratford with the Royal Shakespeare Company and you know then I ended up directing the school review and then I went to |
| 1:56.3 | university thinking maybe I might want to try acting and I ended up directing my |
| 2:00.2 | friends at the end of my first year in a play and I had that moment that I suppose |
| 2:06.4 | you hopeful and I've always felt lucky to have that one moment where I just thought |
| 2:10.4 | oh yeah this is somehow I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do. I don't think I was very good at it to begin with and I feel like I'm still learning but but I got the bug then and I worked, you know, for probably over from that day to when I've directed my first movie was 15 years. I spent 15 years telling stories in theatre. And then circumstances conspired to American Beauty which still |
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