Jae Lee: Yes. Sometimes as the deadline approaches, I may not have drawn something very well. If it’s poorly drawn, it makes Richard’s job harder. So, he’ll call me up to change this horse or that face. It’s great to have a second opinion, because if something really sucks, he’ll tell me.
Lilja: Do you ever feel that the coloring is all wrong and ask Richard to change things?
Jae Lee: We can be honest with each other. If there’s something I don’t like, I tell him and he ignores me. [:-)]
Lilja: I read that you originally wanted two versions of the comic: one as it is today and one with your pencils. Tell me about that.
Jae Lee: Joe Quesada wanted Richard to color over my pencils. I had never worked that way before and I didn’t really want to. I had never worked with Richard before, except on a cover ten years ago. I wanted to ink it and have traditional comic coloring, so we were going to do two versions and show both to Stephen. But when Richard sent me the first page where he colored over the pencils, I called him up and said, “This is it. It’s not going to get better than this. I don’t even want to do the other version.” So we never did.
Lilja: Were you a fan of Stephen King and The Dark Tower before you got attached to this?
Jae Lee: Huge fan. This really is the best project I’ve ever been on. I feel so incredibly lucky that I was the one who Joe called to do this. Thanks Joe.
Lilja: Do you feel you need to be a fan and have a lot of knowledge about The Dark Tower to do the pencils? Or is the manuscript so good that you don’t need that?
Jae Lee: You really do need to know this stuff inside and out. I read all the novels and like to think of myself as knowledgeable about the material, but how am I supposed to know Gabrielle’s eye color? Simple. I look it up in Robin’s excellent Dark Tower Concordances. And if it’s not in there, I can ask her.
Lilja: How nervous were you about working on The Dark Tower? After all, it’s King’s masterpiece.
Jae Lee: Very nervous. Very, very. He’s lived with these characters for most of his life. I had no idea how he’d feel about seeing them.
Lilja: These first issues were pretty much a direct adaptation of King’s book, and I guess you got a lot of guidance from the books. But how about when it comes to the new material for the second story arc. Do you find that to be much harder? Are you nervous about how the fans will react?
Jae Lee: The new stuff is actually much more liberating. It reads better as a story because it was written for these comics, whereas the Gunslinger Born was an adaptation, so we had to cut so much out. I’m very nervous about the fans’ reactions. I hope we can live up to their expectations.
Lilja: I understand that King has the last word on everything. Has he asked you to change anything so far, and if so, can you tell me what?
Jae Lee: So far, nothing.
Lilja: How far into the series are you now? I’m guessing you have done quite a lot on the second story arc, right?
Jae Lee: I’m chugging along on the second arc. I hope to be done before the first issue hits in February 2008.
Lilja: Are you still enjoying it as much now as when you started with issue one of the first story arc?
Jae Lee: Absolutely. I could never get tired of this. I get to play with so many genres. One minute I’m drawing horses, the next, someone getting electrocuted by a robot. How crazy is that?
Lilja: How about the upcoming story arcs? I take it that you are in for all thirty-something, right?
Jae Lee: I’m on for all thirty.
Lilja: OK, thanks for your time. It was very nice to talk to you.
****
Gregory Nicotero
Posted: January 7, 2008
Lilja: Hi Greg! Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to me. I really appreciate it. I was looking you up at IMDb.com and you have a very impressive list of movies you have been involved with. Can you tell my readers a little about yourself?
Gregory Nicotero: Well, I started in Pittsburgh in 1984 under Tom Savini and George Romero’s wings on Day of the Dead…given the impact Dawn of the Dead had on me, we all felt (Howard Berger, Everett Burrell, Mike Trcic) that we were treading sacred ground. I went from there to NY and then LA, and hooked up on Evil Dead 2. It was during that film that we decided to start KNB, and 650 movies later and twenty years under our belt, Howard and I have certainly carved our niche in the annals of modern cinema.
Lilja: You have been involved in several Stephen King movies as well. I noticed Creepshow 2, The Green Mile, Misery, Desperation and The Mist. Did I miss any?
Gregory Nicotero: We also did Tales from the Darkside, Riding the Bullet, Hearts in Atlantis…I’m sure there are a few more. I was a huge fan of King’s growing up…loved ’Salem’s Lot…read Pet Sematary in one day…there was so much about his writing and the “everyday guy getting thrown into these situations” that I always fell in love with. It felt like he hit every nerve in every book. We provided corpses on The Stand for a prop department as well. In terms of his movies I felt like The Dead Zone was a near perfect film…still moves me when Brooke Adams is holding Chris Walken’s hand at the end. I have a framed copy of the Newsweek cover in my office that King signed for me that says, “No future for Stillson,” but he crossed out Stillson and wrote “Bush”…
Lilja: Are you a Stephen King fan or have they just been like any other job for you?
Gregory Nicotero: Very big fan. I’d have to say ’Salem’s Lot and The Stand are my favorite books. I’ve read most of his stuff.... I recall reading Pet Sematary in one day over high school break. These are definitely not just another job...bringing life to characters and creatures that he has created...and literally redefine how people read and accept horror is a tremendous honor.
Lilja: How did you get involved with The Mist?
Gregory Nicotero: Darabont and I have been friends for fifteen years Initially the idea was to do The Mist after The Shawshank Redemption, but The Green Mile came up first. Frank had always wanted us to do The Mist, so when it came up we kicked into the design phase and between Frank, myself and Everett Burrell we really mapped out each sequence and executed them to a “T.” We had a two-month design phase, then a two-month build and a six-week shoot, so it was over before it really started and I’m very proud of the film.
Lilja: Can you talk a little about how the effects in The Mist were done? I guess the tentacle scene must have involved quite a lot of work?
Gregory Nicotero: Frank’s intention always was that he wanted to do digital creature work. Everett and I pressed on him that even if the puppet pieces didn’t appear on screen they would be invaluable for reference, animation, lighting, etc. So, we had always known that our main contribution would be puppets and then most likely they would serve as a guide shot on set under our supervision to ensure the perfect blend and as much creative control as we could put forth. Given Everett comes from a makeup FX background and we’d known each other for twenty years it was really a perfect match.
Lilja: When I saw the tentacle scene it wasn’t one hundred percent convincing, no offense. It was almost as if the tentacles at times were “above” the kid instead of “on” him. What are your own feelings about that scene and how it turned out?
Gregory Nicotero: The CGI work was challenging, of course…adding the levels of mist…we shot quite a bit with the practical tentacles grabbing him and interacting, but for the sake of time some of those where omitted and if anything it is more of a lighting issue and density of mist around the tentacles. Making something that isn’t there have weight and mass is the hardest thing to do, and I may have opted for more practical shots myself, but that’s the process, and Frank’s final vision is up there.
Lilja: I liked the creatures. I understand they are based on drawings from Bernie Wrightson. Is that often the case that someone else designs the monsters or do you usually do that yourself?
Gregory Nicotero: We have a team of designers, and on this film I had very specific concepts in
mind, so I was able to direct Bernie as well as others like Mike Broom, Aaron Sims, Jordy Schell to the direction I wanted. Ironically, I found a sketch we had done for the final creature literally a dozen years ago when Frank first mentioned the project, and I was shocked at how much it looked like it when we finished the movie…good ideas are always good ideas. I did a lot of research beforehand as well…calling on the concept that these aren’t monsters, but animals that have just been misplaced into a new ecosystem…and if they happen to eat someone it is almost mistaken identity, like a shark attack.
Lilja: Were they all created in a computer or do they actually, physically exist?
Gregory Nicotero: We made puppets of the tentacles, bugs, birds and spiders. From these the CGI house was able to make 3D models, and Everett consulted with me about each step on the way (which is rare in the VFX field) and I feel it allowed for a better final product.
Lilja: The mist itself, how was that created? It looks very real.
Gregory Nicotero: A combination of CGI and practical mist engineered by amazing physical effects supervisor Darryl Pritchett. We worked with Darryl on Vampires, Spy Kids 2 and The Green Mile, and he and his team are top notch.
Lilja: You have also been doing some acting. Is that something you enjoy and wish to do more of?
Gregory Nicotero: Nah. It’s just fun once in a while to be in front of the camera…nothing I think I am very good at…even though Rodriguez has always been talking about doing a movie about the life of Stevie Ray Vaughan and I always tell him I want to play a guy in one of his early bands.
Lilja: What are you working on now?
Gregory Nicotero: Currently doing a film called Splice being directed by Vincenzo (Cube) Notali, a miniseries from Spielberg and Tom Hanks called The Pacific…a companion piece to Band of Brothers for HBO, a film with DJ (Disturbia) Caruso called Eagle Eye, and getting ready to start a TV series called Fear Itself for NBC. We’ve wrapped on the second Narnia film, a movie called Mirrors with Alex Aja and Kiefer Sutherland and some work on Indiana Jones…so all in all business as usual here at KNB.
Lilja: OK, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me. I enjoyed it!
****
Frank Darabont
Posted: January 7, 2008
Lilja: Hi Frank. It’s nice to talk to you again. Last time we talked you were about to shoot The Mist, and now it’s done and has had its premier. Are you happy with the result?
Frank Darabont: Delighted. It was deeply satisfying to put this story I’ve loved for so long on film. The result is the story I always saw in my head when reading the book—and I’m very happy to say that Stephen King loves the movie. That’s our best endorsement, as well as my greatest personal satisfaction: the fact that it pleases him.
Also very satisfying for me was the opportunity to try a completely different stylistic approach from anything I’d ever done before as a director, which was very exhilarating and liberating for me. It was a blast, tremendously fun in that regard, and a great learning experience.
Mostly I’m very happy that we accomplished what we set out to do, which was to make a movie on a low budget and a very tight schedule—for the record, it was seventeen million dollars and a thirty-seven-day shoot. That’s not much money these days when major studios are regularly making genre films in the one hundred to two hundred million dollar budget range. Our goal was to make an ambitious movie with limited resources, very much in the spirit of the grainy low-budget genre films I grew up watching and loving.
Lilja: Personally, I really liked The Mist. In fact, I think it’s the best adaptation of a King story to date. What reaction have you gotten on the film? Does everybody like it as much as I do?
Frank Darabont: Thanks, I’m so glad you like it!
Overall, reactions have been very gratifying. A lot of people love it and have blessed us with lavish praise…one critic said it’s the best movie of the year and one of the best horror movies ever. I don’t know if that’s true—time is the only real judge of these things—but I appreciate the opinion. The people who have embraced the movie love it for the raw quality, the intensity and the uncompromising ending.
Of course, there are some people who hate it too, and I think for those very same reasons. It’s real and harsh in a way they don’t expect. I think they went in expecting a “popcorn” monster movie with some thrills and a typical ending—a date-night movie, basically—but that’s not what they got. They got a bleak, nasty movie that kicked them in the stomach and said some deeply negative things about humanity they weren’t prepared to hear. That’s not the sort of thing they expect from “just a horror movie,” so it pisses them off.
That’s OK, you’re allowed to hate my movie as much as you’re allowed to love it. I always say there’s never been a movie that was loved by everybody. (I can read you a few scathingly bad reviews I got for Shawshank when it first came out.) But with The Mist, I set out to make a horror movie, which by my definition is intended to horrify and disturb you. If the movie did that, I succeeded. Some people love those sensations and admire the result. Some people don’t; they’d rather go through the motions of a scary movie, but not get kicked in the stomach. They prefer horror that doesn’t get too real, and The Mist got too real for some people, especially at the end. And that’s fair too. Like I said, there’s never been a movie that pleases everybody.
What I love is that the film provokes strong reactions either way, but nobody’s walking out unaffected by it. And that delights me, because I don’t want to make a movie that leaves you unaffected, which is the worst way a film can fail…especially a horror film. The films I’ve loved most in the genre didn’t pull their punches, they wanted to fuck with my head. Mind you, I’m not comparing my movie with anybody else’s or claiming similar greatness—that would be arrogant and idiotic of me—but Night of the Living Dead leaps to mind. Man, do I love that film. What a subversive piece of filmmaking that was in its day, and it certainly didn’t let us off the hook with warm platitudes or a misplaced happy ending. It kicked us in the stomach, instead. So did Carpenter’s The Thing, another admirably disturbing and subversive film. And Cronenberg’s The Fly, another masterpiece. Again, I’m not comparing, I’m just bringing these movies up because they’ve always been genre inspirations for me, iconic high points that took their shit seriously and said something about the human condition. They were made for adults, not the teen-date crowd. They did what horror should do, I think…take chances, say something, risk pissing you off. The Thing certainly pissed a lot of people off when it was originally released in 1982, though I thought it was a classic the moment I saw it.
Lilja: And what an ending! I just loved it. I still have goosebumps from seeing it. I must admit that it’s even better than the one King wrote. Did you have to fight to get everyone to agree on having such a dark and sad ending?
Frank Darabont: You can’t have an ending as downbeat as this without many people questioning it along the way. Especially on the business end. It certainly scared off a lot of financiers who were otherwise prepared to fund the film. I had a meeting with one producer, very well known, a guy with his own mini-studio. He was prepared to make the movie for thirty million dollars and offered to write me the check before I even left the room. But he insisted I had to change the ending.
It was a tempting offer, but also one of those “do I sell out or not” moments in life. I asked him what he thought the ending should be. He had no idea, all he knew was that he wanted it to be any ending but this one. I told him I had no idea either, that this was the only ending that made sense to me…and I’d been thinking about it for twenty years! So, we shook hands and parted ways.
I suppose for the sake of the money, I could have come up with some other ending. But the truth is, I didn’t want to sell out. I never have before, and saw no reason to start now. I think it would have been lame to tack on a conclusion that let the main character and the audience off the hook. What would that even be? Suddenly the
mist parts and the National Guard is handing them coffee and doughnuts and putting blankets on their shoulders? How obvious and not real. It makes me cringe.
So, I ended up making the movie for Bob Weinstein, the only guy with the balls to say, “Hey, I love this, let’s make this movie.” Of course, I had to make the movie for almost half the money the other guy had offered me—seventeen million instead of thirty. That involved all the typical things: I didn’t take a directing salary upfront, everybody was working for reduced fees, we had to very strictly control the spending, etc. But at least I got to make the movie my way. I’m sure some people will think I’m a moron for walking away from all that dough and others will admire my integrity—and, you know, both opinions are fair. But it’s not as if I had a choice, really. I have to make the movie I see in my head. I can’t render somebody else’s creative vision; I can only render my own, for better or worse. It’s not even ego—the path I have to follow is the one that makes sense to me, otherwise I’d have no idea what the hell I’m doing.
Lilja: How did you get to think of such a grim ending? I can’t even imagine how David feels when he sees the military arriving.
Frank Darabont: It’s funny…most people assume I came up with that ending entirely on my own. Even Stephen King thought so. And I haven’t yet gone on record to dispute that notion, but I will do so now—a Lilja’s Library exclusive! You heard it here first!
Here’s the truth: the idea for that ending is right out of Stephen King’s book, and I told him so when we were in New York together doing the press junket for the movie. He asked me where I’d gotten the idea. I said, “Steve, I got it from you! Look at this line in your story, here in the last chapter…we’re hearing David’s thoughts near the end, and it says: ‘There are three bullets in the gun, there are four of us in the car. If worse comes to worse, I’ll figure a way out for myself.’” (I’m paraphrasing that line right now, but that’s essentially what it says.) Steve got this great look on his face when I told him this, because I think he’d forgotten that he ever wrote it.
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