INT: Ez, we were talking about working with some of the greats to begin with, and then while you were doing that you made a transition to working on movies where you were moving up from being Production Manager [UPM] and really taking over the show, THE MUPPETS [THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN] sort of being the bridge one that did that. But before we go there I want to ask about, a little more about the team beyond the DGA team, which was casting. [ES: Right.] And then also about how to work, because Production Managers are married at the hip with Accountants. And talk about how that process of a movie really happens. And maybe we'll use, for instance, examples of movies where, 'cause it used to be there was a small, there was an accountant who helped you do it, and that was it. And that was a plan. And then there were clerks who paid the Crew. [ES: Right.] And that was it. Now, there’s-- 

ES: Well, I would say right now, I mean first in terms of casting...that's another critical, critical relationship, particularly as you get further up in the ranks from, you know, production managing, line producing, and we can talk about the relationship between those two jobs 'cause I think it's a very interesting conversation, and there isn't one definitive sort of view of that. But some of the key and sort of unsung heroes of these particularly New York films, but a lot of films all over now, are Casting Directors. And not only do they make a, you know, very significant creative contribution, beyond what I think people might imagine. You know, sometimes the leads are there, but even, you know, maybe just they have one lead, but their relationship with the Director, their part of the creative process is very significant and not to be underestimated. And as a Production Manager, you wouldn't want to underestimate it. You'd want to understand how important to you the functioning of your movie is, to have a good relationship with the casting department. And it's become more and more complicated because the dates of the availability of Actors are much more, you know, there's just more effort to get people into more shows and the availability that you might normally have had in the old days, which is just like, "You're mine for the run of the show, don't ask any questions, you know, show up," has changed. And many times we're trying to accommodate people doing other productions just out of courtesy, out of an effort to be collegial, out of knowing that we might need that someday. We might want an Actor to do a couple of days that is in a different production. But that work by the Casting Director and their effort to, you know, sometimes drive you crazy by wanting the perfect Actor who might have availability issues, might create scheduling issues, is still, you know, one of the key sort of quiet collaborations that I've had. And I've had some really wonderful collaborations with really great Casting Directors over the course of the years. So I just, you just, something to note for Production Managers and just, you know, there are people who you have to work well with. And the casting department is one of them, and you can't try to, you can't underestimate it.

INT: In the casting process you're also dealing with the packaging of the movie, so it brings up the question of you may well be the Producer, production guy, but there's sometimes somebody who's packaging the project, making the script, getting it done, getting somebody to buy in and finance it and do that. [ES: Right.] Talk a little bit about your relationship with the quote/unquote Creative Producers or the Producers who... production companies or you know. 

ES: It's a really good question. Not always an easy, you know, for me not the simplest of questions. My original five or six or seven films, the sort of core bedrock of my career, you know, where the fundamental stones were laid, were with auteur Directors. It's not because I'm such a genius. It has to be because of the, you know, good fortune of where I ended up in the New York production world and obviously I had some skills and some talent, but I was there at the right time in the right place. So I worked with Woody [Woody Allen] a number of times, I worked with Scorsese [Martin Scorsese], I worked with Sydney Pollack, I worked with Mike Nichols, I worked with, you know, Directors like that who no matter who is involved in the project, whether there's a Studio, no Studio. Whether there's, you know, what we call Creative Producers, development people, studio Creative Executives, for me there was only one authority. It was the Director. You know, and for everybody. It wasn't… so it was clear and it was clean and it was the way I learned. So, you know, my understanding of feature films when I grew up was that the Director was the authority on the film. So if we made a decision that was financially prudent, financially within the, you know, within the parameters of the project, was safe, was smart, or you know, I only had one person. You know, we scouted a location. If the Director approved it, it was approved. Then as, you know, as I moved out of my early New York nest with Woody and Directors of that stature and that kind of independent creative vision, I started to do more, you know, what I think is a more traditional model. It's just not one I had been exposed to. And I had a huge learning curve on that where very, very talented and, you know, ambitious and powerful Producers, who spent their life developing material, trying to put movies together, and putting their own creative print on those films, you know, became a bigger part of my journey. And it took me, and I'm sure if any of them who, you know, it was a little more complicated with, are watching, would understand, part of the problem for me was understanding that those Producers also had a creative voice. And that their creative voice needs to be listened to. And, you know, as I would talk, if I would talk to younger Production Managers [UPM] now, or Line Producers working their way up, I would make sure they understood that, 'cause it took m--because of just, not because I was dense, but because it just was not in my vocabulary to think that there was anybody on the creative equal of the Director. You know, like it just was not in my conscience. I mean the... when you're on a Woody Allen film, I mean the only person who even remotely was creatively equal to Woody was Gordon [Gordon Willis]. You know, I mean, and he was. But that was a unique situation. But it certainly wasn't a Producer, or it wasn't the Studio, or it wasn't, you know, somebody giving notes from, you know, from California. You know, it was like no one watching dailies, giving notes on dailies, none of that. You know, it was like, "Okay, Woody likes it, we're shooting there." You know, "Marty likes it, that's what it is." So it took me a while to understand how to both technically dial in and understand and work with really, you know, the major Creative Producers out there, and I've worked with a number of them. Sometimes it worked out better than others. And now I think as I start new films now, my relationship with the Producer, the Producer who developed the film, sort of the PGA Producer, usually starts on a very healthy and solid ground. But it took me a while to learn, you know, that that job had a creative mandate, you know. [INT: You understood the making, but you had to understand the biz.] Yeah, it was more, it was also just really the creative imperatives of Producers who've developed films who see themselves very much side by side with the Director when it comes to what the film needs to be.

INT: Before we go further, I wanted you to talk a little bit about working with Mike Nichols on HEARTBURN. 

ES: Yeah, we, you know... I have to gather myself because, you know, I know I'm saying a lot of superlatives in this show, but there's nobody like Mike Nichols. And even, I only did one film with him, there was a chance I would've done more things, you know, the way things worked out, different personnel groupings, but I did very close work with Mike on HEARTBURN and it was a pleasure to start with. I mean that's I would say. First and foremost, it was an honor and a pleasure. And Mike is a truly unique, it's one of the, you know, one of the greats. One of the true great dramatists, comedians, filmmakers, Directors, you know, just a magical person, so… And I didn't really know that, which was what was sort of interesting. When I first met Mike, I hadn't really quite understood, you know, who he was. And I didn't really quite get the history of his, you know, foundational theater work. I mean I knew it, but I didn't really quite understand. But the minute I met Mike, I knew I was in the presence of the most charming, the smartest, the most interesting, and the, you know, this just, the person you wanted to work with. And we were doing, you know, we came on with our New York team. We had Bobby Greenhut [Robert Greenhut], there was was myself, I think Tim Bourne [Timothy M. Bourne] might've been the Location Manager. [INT: Tim Bourne. Joel Tuber was the AD [Assistant Director].] Oh, Joel Tub--yeah, we had our team. I mean Joel actually came with Mike, but Bobby and I and Tim, and I mean I think we did a really nice job. I remember Sam O'Steen, the great Editor who worked with Mike saying, "You know, Mike's happier with the production team than he's ever been." So I was very happy about that. I think what you see with Mike is just a complete command of the process, so that you're not scrambling around. You know, you're not lost; you're never lost with Mike. You're guided very well. You know, you have a location scout, he makes sense of what we need, what we don't need. When the Actors come in, they are a hundred percent comfortable. You know, they're happy to be there, they're comfortable, so… you know, when you talk about what the Director does, you know, what's the role of the Director? I mean, there's no two Directors who do it the same. But if you wanted to take one model, and you took Mike, you know, as the model, you would be on very solid ground as like the perfect manifestation of what the Director has to bring to the production. And, you know, once I saw that, you know, I never forgot it. And any time I ever saw him or ran into him I was like, you know, always thrilled.

INT: You made one more classic movie with Woody [Woody Allen] thereafter, which was RADIO DAYS. Which was a period film. [ES: Right.] What's that like doing that? 

ES: Yeah. RADIO DAYS was a really challenging movie. But it actually pushed the boundary of trying to make the movie work budget-wise. You know, some of Woody's films were relatively simple technically, you know, so that you could really reshoot a lot, you could go back to the same place a lot, the costumes were relatively straightforward. You know, so a movie like BROADWAY DANNY ROSE or HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, you know, they had creative challenges and they were fantastic movies, but being contemporary films in contemporary settings, you know, we would just go on to Broadway and, you know, walk down Broadway and he'd, you know, skip down in front of Mount Sinai Hospital. You know, we didn't have to do a lot of dressing; we didn't have to do a lot of stuff on the street.

ES: RADIO DAYS was a very, very ambitious project. It had hundreds of sets. Hundreds of pieces of little bits of like a woman singing in a recording studio, you know, fully costumed with a little orchestra behind her, in a little studio that no longer existed, none of it existed. You know, a group of people at a, you know, at a little diner, a period diner in bobby socks, you know, and clothing from the ‘40s [1940s]. You know, so the script itself was really ambitious, and we had a number that we, you know, we had a kind of idea of what we were trying to make it for. But I think it was an exciting challenge, 'cause first of all, location point of view. We had to find most of it. We did build some sets. We definitely built sets. In fact, I think the most... maybe the best set, piece of set construction I ever was involved with was the rooftop, which is the final setting, which Ronnie Petagna [Ron Petagna] built, Santo [Santo Loquasto] designed, where we had the Camel sign with the actual… You know, and I remember when we ordered the signs, you know, Joe Hartwick [Joseph Hartwick] and I are like, "What did we just do?" You know, the signs were so much more expensive than we ever thought from, what was that? Artkraft Strauss, right. They built the signs. But I think if you want to go back and look at a magical scene in a magical set, it was the rooftop, it was built at the big stage in Astoria. Basically filled the stage and… You know, it was challenging because it had a tremendous amount of playback. It had a lot of music that was both live and recorded. It had so many settings, and just took everything we had. I kind of love the film. I think it's... it's also the first film I ever had a paid ad on, so it's very exciting to me. And it's a beautiful poster. And I will say this, this is really one of the great moments of my career is, I was meeting much later, I had gone through an attempt at more of a development job and you know, with a partner. I had sort of a detour where I tried to be more of an entrepreneurial Producer to some success, and you know, found that, you know, I was more suited to production work. You know, I worked with Deborah Schindler, we ended up making WAITING TO EXHALE, and we had a number of wonderful projects on development. She went on to do, you know, more projects out of that original deal. But when I came out of that, I think the first job I did was HEAD OF STATE with Chris Rock. And I was called to do it, and I think Chris was interested in me because I had worked with... no, I think it was, DreamWorks was interested because I had worked with a Writer/Director/Star, and that's what Chris was doing. Like, "Who's done that?" They said, "Oh, Ezra Swerdlow's done that," you know. So I met Chris in his office and he had the RADIO DAYS poster. I mean just up there, not for me. But so I walk into Chris' office and there I was on the wall. My first... It's a beautiful poster too. It's a beautiful piece of art, so it made me very comfortable right away. So that's the coming full circle of my first paid ad, was seeing it in an interview with Chris Rock. [INT: You got the job?] Yeah, I got the job, and I don't think that hurt.

INT: You do a whole bunch of movies and then you end up going off to be Executive Producer/UPM for Mel Brooks. [ES: Right.] You made a picture called SPACEBALLS. [ES: SPACEBALLS, yes.] A film that among all the fancy films that you've named, still has an identity. 

ES: Oh no, it's... in fact, it has a huge cult following, and it was not a success at the time, sadly enough, 'cause I had a really good deal on that. But it's turned out to be an enormous video. And you know, I'm still friends with Rick Moranis, and Rick says of all of his films, you know, with all the things he's done, you know, it's still probably the thing that he is sort of yelled at the most about. But it was an interesting story how that happened. I had gone to… I think it's worth diving into, 'cause it was sort of fun. I had just finished HANNAH... I just finished RADIO DAYS, and I decided to take a trip to LA and I had never really spent any time in the film production world of LA. I didn't even really know what it was and I went and started visiting studios and became... it was like the blinders came off. I saw that the real business was in Los Angeles. You know, I went to Warner Bros. and the Warner Bros. lot was actually Columbia. It was my first time I met Gary Martin, who I ended up working for for years, but I met him when he had just transitioned from being like a Construction Coordinator to being a Physical Production guy under Shel Schrager. And they were like talking to me about, you know, about production managing out there, and I went over to various lots, and I realized that the physical production of a movie is just a little piece of it. In New York, that's what we did. You know, we didn't do a lot of development, we didn't do a lot of distribution, we did production. So my understanding of film business was, "We make movies," you know. And I went out to LA and I realized like, you know, the physical production department is in like the trailer out there, and like all of the big offices are for people doing distribution, marketing, development, funds, you know, money raising. So that was enlightening.

ES: So I went over to Fox, and I knew a guy named Michael Gruskoff. I don't remember how I knew Michael, but I knew Michael. So Michael said, "Come visit me on the Fox lot." And across the hall from Michael, 'cause Michael had worked with Mel [Mel Brooks], was Brooksfilms. It was Mel Brooks' office. And Michael says, "You want to come over and meet Mel Brooks?" And so he took me across the hall and, you know, I met Mel, and I stayed there for like four hours. And Mel just liked me. And I think part of it was I was a New Yorker, you know, he was a New Yorker. You know, I was a New York Jew, and also I'd worked for Woody Allen. And I think Mel was, you know, so... he loved Woody, but he also was challenged, you know, like I mean, you know, he had a little bit of like, you know, "I'm as good as Woody." You know? And so, I thought he was kind of interested in me one, because he liked me, he thought I was smart, but also 'cause I worked for Woody, so he knew I had some kind of pedigree if I'd worked for seven movies for Woody Allen or something. I mean that's a statement at that point in time. There was nobody more respected than Woody. And so I go home and I... no, no, it was between HANNAH AND HER SISTERS and RADIO DAYS, so it was after HANNAH, and then we're on RADIO DAYS, and this is something Helen still remembers. I'm in the back room and Helen answers the phone or one of the people up there and Helen calls back and goes, "Ezra, it's Mel Brooks on the phone for you." And, you know, everybody was like thinking it was a joke. And Mel, you know, gets on the phone, it's like, "Hey Ezra, I got a picture, you gotta come out to Los Angeles, what are you doing in New York? There's no New York film business, you gotta get out here. I'm gonna make you a Producer." He said, "You know, you don't have to production manage any more, just come out here, you're gonna produce, it's a movie, it's a takeoff on STAR WARS, just come out." And that was really what happened. So I said to Woody, I said, "You know, I'm thinking of going to do a Mel Brooks movie in Los Angeles." And he said, "That'd be great, as long as you come back." And then he did say something funny, which was, "Well the next two movies I do, everyone's going to hate." And they turned out to be ANOTHER WOMAN and SEPTEMBER. So like, he was pretty prescient about that. But he said that, he said, "I don't think anyone's going to like the next couple of movies anyway, you might want to get out of here." But anyway, I ended up not going back, unfortunately. And you really can't go back, because what happens is, Joe became the product--what am I'm going to go back and bump Joe back out of his chair? You know, we had a kind of a system there that once you left, once you flew the coop, you were gone. So I went out to-- [INT: Take the cannoli, leave the gun.] I went out to Los Angeles, yeah, and, you know, produced--in fact, in that, you know, produced SPACEBALLS in a way that might be the most satisfying job creatively that I've ever had. The relationship with Mel, what I did in the combination of working with him with the script, working, I mean we had a great Writer there, Tom Meehan [Thomas Meehan], but like working with them creatively on the set, really being part of, "How do we shoot this? How do we conquer this? How do we figure it out?" And managing the film, bringing it in on budget, learning a huge amount about visual effects because it was a huge visual effects movie in the old style, kind of pre-digital, optical visual effects, but very ambitious, you know. It was tremendous. A tremendous experience.

INT: And you brought Bill Pullman in on that [SPACEBALLS] to some degree? 

ES: Well yeah. We were, you know, Mel [Mel Brooks] had gone out to a couple of stars for the Lone Starr part who passed for whatever crazy reasons. Why you would pass on Mel I don't know, but they will remain nameless who he went to. And then you had done RUTHLESS PEOPLE, and Bill Pullman, who I'm still friends with, this is a wonderful person and great Actor, I did TOO BIG TO FAIL with him recently, had just done that crazy part in RUTHLESS PEOPLE. [INT: RUTHLESS PEOPLE.] And he also was friends with my brother, and somehow I mentioned to Mel, you know, and then Rick [Rick Moranis] also liked Bill, and it was like, you know, "What about looking at Bill Pullman?" And he looked at RUTHLESS PEOPLE and he brought him in and he cast him. It was kind of amazing. You know, 'cause he was not expected to be cast in that movie at that point.

INT: And then you set off to work with not only, you did a whole series of movies where Studios would come to you as the sort of glue, the go-to guy when they had a project or a Director, but they wanted to make sure there was a Producer/Filmmaker. 

ES: Right. Yeah, this is when I think this transition from production managing to line producing and the overlap, but the difference in the jobs, it's a good time to kind of discuss that, 'cause I think that's, at least for my career, was a very central part of defining what I did. I mean I did a small stint, you know, as a real developing Producer and to the degree I succeeded--[INT: You made it very successful.] Yes, I made a historic movie, and I'm proud of it. [INT: Which was?] Which was WAITING TO EXHALE, where we, you know, we got the script, we got the book, Deborah [Deborah Schindler] and I got the book from Terry [Terry McMillan], you know, we optioned it through our deal at Fox. And we, you know, worked with Ron Bass [Ronald Bass] and got the movie made.That was a different experience, but the basics of my career have been production management and the overlap between line producing and production managing, which sometimes that's one person, depending on the scale of the movie. Sometimes that's two people, sometimes that's three people, depending on the scale of the movie. But I think what developed in Hollywood and the need for Line Producers as opposed to Production Manager--this is my, the Ezra Swerdlow theory, was that as Developing Producers did more and more projects simultaneously and had bigger slates, because they needed to have big slates 'cause they didn't know what was going to go, their ability to be on the set and to manage the film day-to-day, became diminished in some way. You know, you couldn't always have the person who had developed the film, who was sort of responsible for the marketing, responsible for the delivery. They might not be there at all, they might be there, but they might have to go back and forth a lot. And I think the feeling from the studio was, "We can't leave that to the Production Manager, you know, we need someone with the title of Producer, with a Producer authority to talk to the Agents of the Actors and the Actors directly. To talk to the Director directly as a peer. And not to have it be, you know, a person whose job is more prescribed.” So that's where the Line Producer… and the credits have varied. Some people have gotten Producer credits for line producing, some people have gotten Executive Producer, some people have gotten Co-Producer, some people have gotten Line Producer. That's a different subject, that's just sort of fighting for your credit. But the job itself I think is a really unique, difficult challenging job. And sometimes you would be working with the UPM, and sometimes you'd have to be the UPM, depending on the resources of the film to, you know, add another senior production official.

INT: And you'd have to work with the Studio or Creative Producer to... you'd have to mediate. 

ES: Yeah. Well what really, it's really a job that's bringing together all of the disparate interests and trying to have them all feel that their interests are being well represented. The Studio and both the physical production department of the Studio, which has its own separate agenda, the creative production department, which sometimes is at odds with the physical production department of the studio over what resources should go to what things, whether it's somebody want more money into cast, some people want money into production, you know, they have their own tension. The creative developing Producer also has their agenda and they want the movie to have as much scope, have as much, you know, resources as possible. The Director, who has to deliver this film and has to feel empowered and given the resources to deliver it, and then many times an Actor or Actor's representatives who also have a very significant kind of producing, production, scheduling say. So really you're working for all of them. And that's the trick. And it's a difficult trick. And you know, for a while Line Producers were more traditionally brought in with Directors, which was a nice, sort of a nice way to come in to a film in a way with a sort of existing relationship with the Director, where there was really no choice for the Studio and for any other of the elements of the film. This is my--like, you know, some Directors like Ron Howard and Todd Hallowell, you know, people who have longstanding relationships where that's the production team. I never, unfortunately, you know, had somebody who worked as consistently as that, or long enough, or liked me long enough to have the, you know, 10 movies after the Woody [Woody Allen] world, where I really wasn't the Producer. [INT: They liked you, they may have just thought you were too smart.] Or they didn't, you know, I had to get another job 'cause they took time off, you know? [INT: They didn't work.]

ES: So then I started to come in more with being proposed by Studios. And I remember on ENCHANTED, which is a film that I loved doing and I think is one of-- [INT: Who are the Directors and the...] The team on ENCHANTED was... oh it's very sad to talk about, but the Director was Kevin Lima. The First AD is Michael DeCasper, who unfortunately is no longer with us, was one of the most, you know, wonderful New York people. Barry Josephson, you know, it was his production team and it was Disney. And it was a very complex and... so I was interviewed by Barry and Kevin, I think I remember, and then I, Barry called me and he was like, I had to kind of prove that I was not like Disney's, you know, hatchet man. And it was a legitimate question. It was like they were, Kevin and he were concerned, you know, I had been proposed for the job by Whitney Green I think, by Disney. And they were inherently suspicious of that. So I said to them, you know, "I think the value is that, first of all I'm not there to do hatchet work. If you look at the films I've done, there's no indication of any film that doesn't look great, doesn't work technically, and you can talk to the people who I worked with to get that, you know, off. But on the other hand, the fact that somebody like Whitney and the Disney production team has faith in me could be very valuable, because it doesn't just mean I'm going to tell you, 'You don't need it,' I'm going to tell them, 'We need it.' And it's not just going to be your sort of appetite that they'll say, 'Well just cut your appetite,' it'll be like, 'I'm telling you, you can't do this scene any other way, we need more time on it,' or, 'We need more resources.'" [INT: 'Cause you had Amy Adams popping out of manholes, doing musical numbers, right?] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I'm just saying, that was sort of my rap, which I did believe to people who I had to kind of comfort, like 'cause then I did a number of movies for Sony. And I had a very, you know, strong relationship with Gary Martin, and the same conversation would generally happen where they would have, I would come in as a recommendation from Sony, I was... I did ZOMBIELAND, SMURFS [THE SMURFS], JUMP STREET [21 JUMP STREET], EQUALIZER [THE EQUALIZER], SMURFS 2 [THE SMURFS 2], all I think in succession for Sony. And, you know, so there's a point at which people are going to see you as the Line Producer more identified with the Studio than with the filmmaker. And that's a tough transition, a transition you don't necessarily want to let go all the way. You know, you want to kind of make people you're working for understand that you have an understanding of the interests of the film and it's a valid understanding, and it's going to serve the Director and serve the Creative Producer well. That's the hope. [INT: And you sort of become the harbor pilot working with the Studio to help them navigate and get their film into port?] Yes, exactly. Yeah, you know, you're there to deliver the picture. There may be some rough seas, but ultimately you have to keep it, keep it happening.

INT: And you had worked a number of times with David Koepp who was a wonderful, one of the most successful Writers, but was obviously had worked for Steven [Steven Spielberg] and all these people and... 

ES: Yeah, well it's interesting, you know, Dave is, you know, that was a treat working for David Koepp. I mean his writing palate and his directing palate were very different. I mean he's written JURASSIC PARK and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and SPIDER-MAN and films like that and one of the Indy films [INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL] and you know, he wrote PANIC ROOM. He’s, but his, the films I did were much smaller, much more nuanced kind of films. We did SECRET WINDOW and GHOST TOWN. [INT: With Johnny Depp?] SECRET WINDOW with Johnny Depp and GHOST TOWN with Ricky Gervais, and I just think both those films are really lovely, really nice films. Not seen enough for him, for his tastes, but you know, we're proud of both of them, you know. Yeah, and he was a Writer/Director. You know, so again, I've had a lot of, I've had more than my share working with Writer/Directors.

INT: And we talked about Ruben [Ruben Fleischer] and ZOMBIELAND. But then you actually did a very interesting thing with Curtis Hanson and HBO, which was? 

ES: Yes. We did TOO BIG TO FAIL based on the Sorkin [Ross Sorkin] book, not, the other Sorkin, you know, the economics Sorkin. His book about the crash and basically Hank Paulson's [Henry Paulson] effort to get TARP [Troubled Asset Relief Program] and basically, in his view, save, you know, the world economy. And, you know, HBO had started that style of movie; they had done RECOUNT I think before us. They had this really interesting idea of historically relevant films where, you know, you're personifying living, existing people. They had like people playing, you know, we had people playing Paulson and Bernanke and Jamie Dimon. I think Bill [Bill Pullman] played Jamie Dimon. And you know, people like that. Everyone in the film was, you know, a real person, and you know, it's a very bold call by HBO to kind of take that on. And I, you know, really enjoyed doing it. And Curtis, you know, was sort of, as we know, Curtis, you know, fell into ill health and sadly because he's made some of the great films we've ever seen, so I felt when I, you know, it was great because, you know, we all felt, you know, Julie Bloom [Julie A. Bloom] who was the First AD and Richard Baratta who was the Production Manager, we all felt like we were back, you know, getting the chance to do that kind of ‘70s [1970s]/’80s [1980s] thing and-- [INT: Sidney Lumet kind of movie, right?] To work with Curtis Hanson, you know, to work with, you know, that kind of Director. And you know, even though he was still a little bit starting to become, you know, a little bit weaker, you know, it was clear that we were dealing with, you know, a guy who knew what he was doing. And one thing, you know, one thing you like is when the Director really knows what they're doing. That's really a helpful...

INT: You did the first SMURF movie, right? [ES: I did the first two.] Two? [ES: Yeah.] And those movies really are an interesting story if you go back to your MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN, and which is traditional, and then you go, "Wait a second, now we're..." Forget photo, you know--[ES: Yeah, forget--]--forget photochemical restrictions. [ES: Right.] Everything is digital and digital is starting to be… And yet, SMURFS itself is a weird hybrid of that craft. 

ES: Yeah. Yes. The first SMURFS movie was really a great experience and a great challenge. I think there are few other films like this but THE SMURFS movie is a live action movie set in the real world with the lead characters fully CGI. Like they're not there when you're shooting the scene. [INT: But they're interacting with...] But they're interacting directly with-- [INT: Actors.] Like, you know, Neil Patrick Harris or you know, Jayma [Jayma Mays]. You know, just like direct interactions, so we had to solve that problem. And there really wasn't at that point a template for doing it yet. You know, it was a learning process. And we had some very, very smart people. We had, the AD [First Assistant Director] was Benita Allen, who was really, really a strong AD. Richard Hoover [Richard R. Hoover], who is the Visual Effects, not the Production Designer, Richard Hoover from Sony Pictures Animation was a, you know, Visual Effects Supervisor. And we had to figure out, basically, you know, how to shoot scenes that were completely natural looking, where the Actor who was interacting with a smurf could feel the rhythm of the scene as well as have the right eyelines, have the right lighting, and you know, we worked on it for a long time and then figured it out. What we did was, we had Actors, two Actors, one male and one female in both of the two movies, one in Montreal and one here, basically play all of the smurf parts in real time, sort of under the camera or as close to the position of the smurf as they could be, and not hurt the shot. And so the acting was done, and then those voices would be replaced by the character Actors who we would hire to, you know, inhabit those parts. And then the elements of interaction with the smurfs were generally physical effects, done with very fine-tuned, that kind of old school, like if you're going to knock this over, you know, you've had... instead of making that a CGI element we would have, you know, a bottle or a toothbrush or some water or a pot or you know, or some steam be live action which you have to have the timing, so it's like you know, the smurf's walking over, knocks over that bottle, we would knock over the bottle but there would still be no smurf there yet, so. [INT: Right.]

INT: But you were creating a reality that was smurfic [for THE SMURFS]. 

ES: Yeah, and the technical part of it, which we found, I was actually talking to somebody about recently, you know, we had two technical... You know, I really was learning… this was state of the art visual effects. Because there are more complicated things, but if you're building a model and it's in its own planet, that is a different set of rules than putting a fully CGI animated character that has to have three dimensions, that is not, that's like a squirrel, it's not, you know, it's like it's supposed to look real and have weight and have skin and fur and clothes that move real, and just dialing that into a live action setting and having the lighting and the interaction with the floor and the props work. And there was a tremendous amount put into that. I don't know how technical we want to get, but there were a couple pieces of equipment that really solved that, and later, you know, I've become, fortunately through that, someone who's had a lot of experience with visual effects. I would say that, you know, if you ask, you know, not to preempt you as my interviewer, but one of the biggest changes I'd say from where we started to where we are now is that the visual effects department is on every film. There's visual effects on every film, even the simplest, most naturalistic film. There's something visual effects can do. And then on a big visual effects film, it can be the biggest piece of a budget, you know, by far. In THE SMURFS it was probably at least 50 percent of a big budget. And we, you know, built huge sets, went all over New York City, shot for a fairly long schedule, had, you know, A-plus technology, cranes, whatever we needed. And still, putting the smurfs in, probably cost more than, you know, all that. We were like a very elaborate plate--[INT: Than the seven Woody Allen movies that you made.] Yeah. So I think the other... so the other big change for budgeting and for production management is getting ahead of that. We did a session here a couple of years ago where I came with a couple of Visual Effects Producers and Supervisors, just with a bunch of ADs [Assistant Directors] and Production Managers [UPM] to try to start to give people an understanding of how to approach visual effects, because they're like no other element of a film in terms of budgeting, controlling, scheduling. It's a very difficult process because you really don't know what you're going to do until you cut the film. And you can't, you know, force the Editor and the creative team once they're in the cutting room to only use the template that you gave, that you originally budgeted the visual effects on. So it's really understanding that process, and the more you understand that, the more you work with Visual Effects Producers, Visual Effects Supervisors, the more you understand technically what has to actually get done, how it gets done, the more valuable you could be, and the less chance you'll have one of these catastrophic post-production fiascos that many people have gone through, where like, you know, you budgeted 10 million and you know, the first cut is like 50 million dollars worth of visual effect shots. Because you know, you're budgeting an optimistic number of shots, but then you realize, "Hey, it's nothing to do with the film we're making." So how do you avoid that? You know, and everyone who's been in my position has been through that. So you know, I'd say that I think I've had a nice run with visual effects movies to at least get, you know, get some approach to, you know, how to handle that problem.

INT: Do you feel that your understanding of story and cinema storytelling empowers you to, on these various projects, since you have more experience, to be able to be ahead of the curve a little bit? 

ES: Yes. Simple answer. I think for line producing, the more--and production management--the more filmmaking, the more you see it, you know, as yourself in the film, in the filmmaking process, trying to deliver the product creatively, trying to deliver the story, trying to deliver… and it's not just the story because, you know, in many elements films, the visual language is a very ambitious and sometimes more of what we as production people spend our time producing. You know, what really happens right between the Actor and the Director is the furthest thing I'm away from. You know, that is really the special purview of the Director. It's like, "Do it quieter, give me this, give me that, think about this, let's try this." You know, that is, on every film, that is something where you leave that to the Director. You can't ask, you can't want to, you can't in any way try to go out on that turf. But everything up to that, the more you can help the Director creatively, whether it's by saying, you know, on EQUALIZER I remember having a really good idea, story wise, to save us some economic hardship we were in, you know, looking at the story, making a... cutting this, talking to--and I had a very close relationship with the Writer on that, and he said, "Yeah, it's a great idea." You know, being able to kind of articulate an idea that might help dig your way out of a production hole, or add a nice beat, or at least understand what we're going for, enhances the job. But I also think, you know, I paid attention to what Gordon Willis and what, then we had Carlo Di Palma and Fred Schuler and whoever, you know, Owen Roizman. When I started, I was fascinated by the DP [Director of Photography] and what they did. I know how to light, I don't know if I could do it well, but I know what they do. I know how to read the light meter, I know where, you know, what hard lights do, what soft lights do, I know what they do. I know what they're going for, I'm not in any way saying that to be, diminish what they do, but the more you understand that, your conversations with those key Crew people become a different conversation if you have an understanding of what they need to achieve and how they need to achieve it. And the same thing with the Production Designer. You know, I was saying to you, I think when we talk about the DGA responsibilities of being a Production Manager [UPM], Line Producer, First AD [First Assistant Director], you know, and talk about serving the Director, we also have to serve the DP and the Production Designer--equally. And you can't underestimate that. That's probably 50 percent of the job. You know, is just those two departments and the Costume Department. You know, it's like how do those people get the resources to do what they need to do? The more you understand about it, the better.

INT: In working with Antoine [Antoine Fuqua], you mentioned THE EQUALIZER, and then you did SOUTHPAW, those are both extremely visceral movies. Were they hard to do? 

ES: You know, interestingly they were both very hard to do. I had to kind of learn to embrace the execution of a violent sequence as a creative endeavor. You know, I hadn't done that many movies with raw, energetic violence in them. And listen, I mean I love Tarantino [Quentin Tarantino], you know, it's not like I don't like the films, you know what I mean? It's just, I didn't gravitate to them, they didn't gravitate to me. And maybe somewhere I'm a little squeamish for it. You know, somewhere it's not my language. So, you know, I did have to suspend any kind of inhibition because that was what the movie, that was what was on the page. And so we would have meetings you know to how to solve, you know, a very violent sequence, or how to do, execute a really violent fight that ended up with, you know, a visceral explosion and, you know, somebody being, you know, shot with a staple gun. You know, like I had to kind of let that happen in a way and embrace it and work towards it. And you know, it was satisfying. And SOUTHPAW I felt like we really spent a lot of time trying to do the boxing in a unique way, and I think Antoine was, you know, knows more about boxing than anybody in the world anyway. And Jake [Jake Gyllenhaal] worked like nine weeks or 10 weeks or three months to learn to box, to almost a level where I think he could've, you know, he certainly could've gotten in the ring, I don't know, he might've gotten his ass kicked, but he definitely would've had an approach, you know, to boxing. He was in incredible shape; there was no visual effects on his physique in that. And there are no doubles for Jake in the movie. You know, we figured out a way to... and Terry Claybon, who was the boxing coordinator, figured out a way--and I didn't know it was ever going to come together, you know, like I was always like, "Where is the stunt double? When are we going to get Jake's..." And we had Jake's stunt double there, but "When are we going to dial that in? How are we going to cut?" you know. And it was like, it never happened. It was just like, there they were, you know, so. I mean Antoine is a, you know, got an amazing eye. That's one of the great visual artists working.