JAMES NUNN Interview (Director 'One More Shot', 'Shark Bait', 'Tower Block')

What a treat! Our first directorial interview and it's a smasher, with fellow Brit action maestro JAMES NUNN. James has helmed sniper thriller Tower Block, open sea thrillkiller Shark Bait, 2 entries into the WWE Marine franchise plus 4 movies with HRH Scott Adkins - Green Street 3, Eliminators, One Shot (which we discussed on our 2nd episode of this pod!) and his latest is sequel One More Shot...

We discussed the nerdy logistics of making a one-take movie, how to wring the most from a budget, taking into account what the audience wants and everything else you need to become a... Master Of Nunn.

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Transcript

1:01

Well, it looks like I'm doing intros to these episodes now. Hey, welcome back to Dodge This Season 3, Episode 8, and a very special episode tonight on a very special Dodge This. We have the first in, let's hope, a continuing series of one-on-one interviews with action directors. Today, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with British director James Nunn to talk about his movie back catalogue, which includes a whole host. of excellent genre stuff from claustrophobic sniper thriller Tower Block to WWE sponsored The Marine 5 and 6 plus 4 Count'em 4 movies with your friend and mine Scott Adkins, the latest of which One More Shot is out now wherever you rent movies from and I cannot recommend it highly enough. We're going to talk about that. in some might say a nerdy logistical depth, because that's my jam. In the next episode of dodge this, we will talk about one more shot in detail with filmmaker and good old chum Ben Malaby, who also pops up in this episode of Couple of Times Intrigue. So we'll be asking James Dunn the big questions by which I mean elaborately worded and over long If you stick around to the end, you'll find out if I definitely have a role in his next project. No spoilers! I'll see you at the end for some more waffle, but in the meantime, let's get into it! I ain't got a You're out of fighting without fighting. Watch this. James Nunn, thank you so much for joining us. I didn't tell you this before, but you are officially the first directorial interview that we've had on the podcast. You're the first person connected to one of the films who has come on the podcast. Wow. I mean, what an intro. A pleasure, a privilege. And a lot of pressure as well. A huge amount of pressure. This is the first time this has happened for me that I've been the first. So it's been a long time. possibility to be both the first and the last interviewee. So this could go either way. I'm excited. I'm going to start easy and then we'll build up to the exciting questions. Let's start. We're here to talk about one more shot ostensibly, but I'd love if we have time to dig a little bit deeper into some other things around your moviemaking career. I'll start with a sort of to this movie, what would it be? Oh my God. In my head, I've got like five helicopters flying in slow motion with the American flag sort of waving in the foreground, like a sort of Michael Bay sort of image or something that, you know, the budget wouldn't stretch to. And I have put a lot of pressure on you for the first question, I grant you that. Yeah, I mean, you really went there. Do you know what? There's loads of things I always want to do. And I'm always constantly being told I don't have enough time or money to do them. So if I could even list them or remember what I was asking for at the time, you'd probably have a massive novel because I think part of the role of the director is to kind of push as much as you can to kind of really squeeze the budget of the movie without going over. But like to try and get as much on screen as possible. So I can't really. Yeah, in terms of am I happy with the movie? I'm really happy with the movie. Could we have done any more with the time and money we had? Probably not. Like, I definitely feel like I rang the hell out of that towel. But look, more explosions, more guns, more like a different another plot twist with, you know, someone else doing something nefarious. Sure. More. I think I think the kind of the. Yeah, like take your idea and then just add another 50%. And then that's what I try and do with everything. Checks out. And you do an incredible job of it. Don't get me wrong. I mean, for the confines and the parameters within which you're working on this movie. I suppose that takes me to my next thought and question. In a lot of your movies thus far, you seem to be working parameters, you know, a tower block on a jet ski in the middle of the ocean in an underground car park full of WWE wrestlers or in a single camera long take format. Is that something that you're aware of? Is it simply a byproduct of budget or do you like being bound by those restrictions? No, good question, Simon. The truth is you're kind of being bound by budget to be really frank with you. I have I do love I mean, Eliminators is probably the movie where I get to cover the most ground outside at one location. Green Street 3. Similarly, we got to run around London in both of those instances. But it was a bit easier to travel back then. You know, you're talking about 10 years ago when there was less traffic, less Ubers on the road, and you could probably get from like, to two locations in a day. The truth is, you know, certainly in the realm of filmmaking that I'm operating in at the minute. And hopefully, you know, I will get step up. I'd love to. But where I am right now. You have to kind of choose your battles. And if I was running across town, trying to get three or two or three locations in a day and only having like an hour to film in each, like the productivity of what I can achieve will go down severely versus if we can just sort of anchor ourselves in one location for 12. 11 or 12 hours, then I'm obviously going to be able to do some much more in-hards kind of dramatic or action stuff. So it's not just a model for my career. It's a model in a lot of these DTV movies or low budget moviemaking. You know, and you see in high budget moviemaking when they're trying to keep the cost down, they'll keep you in kind of one location. So, yeah, it's definitely a budget parameter, but then it can serve the story. Probably why I would say more in the one shot. franchise than say the Marine franchise is that the one shot element, the one location element in the Marines was kind of out of necessity for budget. Whereas weirdly in one shot you actually wouldn't be able to do more than one location because you're trying to run continuously for 90 minutes. And I mean, there's only so much actors and a camera operator could actually run, you know, I'm, we did have the step counter on in the airport. I think the camera operator was hitting like 12,000 steps a day, and the hotel was next door. So I guess you're looking at like three to four miles a day walking around. I don't know. Yeah, it'd be interesting to work out how fast Scott actually moves in that movie. I should do that. Yeah. I mean, that's incredible. It's interesting that you mentioned the camera operators, because I have a lot of sort of thoughts about the logistics of making these movies that maybe to a lot of people are not the interesting stuff. And obviously, the visuals and the feeling of the movie are the movie. But as a sort of creator, occasional filmmaker, just how things get made is fascinating to me. And we talk a lot about the actors remembering 10 minutes worth of lines and the choreo and the blocking. But we rarely sort of hear about how the camera operator also has to remember all, most of the people's lines, like who's talking next, where people are moving to, how to shoot the fights from the angles that sell them. I mean, I mean, it's sort of an insane ask and an insane task or a challenge you would hope, how do you approach the camera department and how do you work with them to make that happen? Yeah. And again, another great technical question that not everybody kind of thinks about or is aware, but the camera, the key camera operator of the scene has to be completely savvy and responsive, not only to the rehearsals that we're doing ahead of kind of shooting, but then whilst we're actually shooting the movie as well, because not every take will be the same. So they have to kind of flip between. understanding the choreography of the fight, which might be somewhat fixed, understanding the geography of a location, which is definitely fixed, but then being responsive to the drama and like my taste and the DOP's taste. And also kind of be a little bit aware of where the boom is. These whole movies also got a boom swinging around the whole time. And you've got to you've got to remember, which is crazy when you think we're in a totally reflective glass box of an airport. But in this case, had two different operators between movie one and movie two, both lovely, amazing operated different friends, been working with for years. We did ask the Tom Walden operated the first movie, he was asked to come back and do number two. Unfortunately, he was on some sort of little known TV show, something like the Marvel Universe or Star Wars, I don't know. Yeah, he was busy. So and my DOP, Joe, who is an amazing DOP. Um, his, he's actually, his wife is a camera operator and she was looking to make a step up into a cam, uh, and she's already been doing it for years, a sort of B cam on, on bigger production. So she came and actually operated on the second movie. So it was quite interesting actually having this husband and wife dynamic as well, uh, in the camera department. Um, but they're, they're the sweetest, most talented couple. So it's like the sort of affordable Deakins is. Yeah. I mean, no offense to anyone mentioning that sentence. I'm going to say that to him. The budget deacons. Yeah, look. The next deacons. How about that? Someone's got, yeah, yeah. I figure I'll pitch it that way. Someone's got to be budget deacons and it might be dope, but I think I'm going to tell him he's the next deacons. It might make it might make him happier. But yeah, if you're going to be budget anyone, why shoot for the stars really, you know. If you're going to be the guy shooting a one take movie, I feel like Deakins is a pretty good standard to aim for. Absolutely. One thing I've sort of thought about a lot with this and with One Shot is the same nerdy thoughts of, man, I just want to see the behind the scenes of this. I just want to see the making of this. And it suddenly dawned on me when I was rewatching yesterday that there's probably a very real reason why there's not a lot of like B-roll of... the shooting of this is because there's nowhere for another camera person or a crew to be to shoot a behind the scenes of the camera person and crew running around. Totally correct. So can you sort of paint a picture of what the set looks like? Where are you? How are you directing the action? Like, who is the camera and sound team? Like, what is that? What's behind or in front of the actors? Yeah, sure. Really astute note of you to notice. Completely correct. You know, we're shooting 360 most of the time, so there's zero place to put a second like making off camera. A couple of weeks on occasion, we have strapped like GoPro body cams to either the operator or the boom operator to kind of give you a flavor. But the problem is they're running around like, you know, crazy. flamingos or whatever that is sort of a bit nonsense to watch. It looks like a sort of headache inducing parkour video. Yeah, yeah, worse, worse than that. So it's very difficult. And also the trouble with like making of stuff. I love it because really that's kind of how I learned to make movies. Like watching DVD special features was like a fantastic education alongside my real education. But. It costs money and it costs time. And again, like you're running around an airport and I don't know if you know, I've mentioned a few interviews, but we literally had four hours a day to shoot the movie from midnight to 4am and the idea of having to slow down and stop so that someone could pretend to film us for half an hour or even 10 minutes. That's 10 minutes. I'm not able to do something that's actually going to go on screen. So you'll find that, you know, when we have done them that the making of stuff in these kinds of movies has been more talking head based with some snippets of a crazy GoPro. But that's not because I don't want it. It's just because it's just feasibly not as important as communicating the story. So that kind of answers that bit of your question. The second bit of the question is you have... I'm always within a five minute of where the shot is or at the end of where the shot is, probably. And it will generally depend on the signal ability and range within the airport. We had it on the first film, which was a bit of a problem because we were shooting on an ex-army base and a lot of the buildings, because of radar and whatever, had been birdcaged naturally in concrete. So, you know, you... feasibly, you're like, well, I can run it to take for 20 minutes, but we just didn't have the signal on occasion to even do that. Right. The first two minutes looked great and then they went in the bunker and I've got no idea what happened. Yeah, we know. Yeah. Sometimes I am just completely, I would just be completely blind and then they'd go through that wall and then they'd come out and they'd link back in and I'd just be sitting there thinking, Oh God, I hope that bit was good. And um. And then similarly similar thing happened with movie two, because you're in an airport and there's loads of radio and it's a working airport. So there's like radio signals going off everywhere and it's all interfering. So it would be this kind of like whilst I'm blocking through with the actors and the camera team, how I kind of want it to play out one of the tech like camera assistants or the DIT digital image technician people will be like plotting where to put the aerials so that. we can hide the and then you've got the amplified problem in an airport that every to every three people we brought into the airport we had to have one airport chaperone and so you've your time. Yeah. So your times in your crew, but like you've already got a hundred members of crew and now you've got another 30 of chaperones. Equally, everyone has to wear a high vis apart from the actors. So You're also operating in this like highly reflective surface with loads of people running around in like bright yellow high vis. My DOP, Low Budget Deacons, as you called him, was kind enough to buy me and a couple of like other crew who were always sort of in the way, like these black high vis jackets with just the fluorescent strip. So there'll be some stills out there where you're like, James, you're lying. You're not in a high vis. I am in a high vis. I'm in a black high vis. It's a low vis. It's a low-vis. Exactly. Yeah, so I was in my low-vis. And then in terms of the amount of people running around during that, the actual take aside from the actors, there's definitely the camera operator. Focus is probably being pulled next to me remotely. But there'd be some people, there'd be the grip holding the camera operator and holding a load of cables. And then there'll be the sound recordist with a bag. And then there'll be a boom operator. So there's probably like four or five people. They like. high ducking in and out. And we got away with it much better on this movie. On the first movie. And if people can look for, I've never told anybody, you get an exclusive here. There is an occasion where there is a camera operator. There is a camera assistant just standing in the middle of a shot. No one's ever picked it out, but he is just standing there. Oh, it's your Starbucks Cup in Game of Thrones. It's it's my style is my star. dodge this have the exclusive. How we couldn't how we physically couldn't dodge it. I mean, it is it is absolutely extraordinary that there isn't more of that. And I think it speaks to, you know, your level of planning. And it seems you seem to me like a very technical filmmaker. I mean that in a good way. I suspect perhaps your time is like first day D ng. you know, lends you to thinking in terms of like time management and getting stuff done. So there's less of the kind of auteur-ish, we'll do another take, we'll do another take. You seem to be, and this is such a sort of overused and I feel like it doesn't sound complimentary but I mean it in a complimentary way, like a safe pair of hands. Yeah, yeah, look, I think, you know, I agree. Thank you for the compliment. I do take this compliment. I think this. You have to be very technically minded as a director. And that is my strength, and I do get that through my fascination with making of as a child and then becoming a first assistant director and, you know, having a lot of on set experience with many different directors of kind of like way they did things and the way to run a crew. And. I do take it as a compliment. And then I think probably as I've got a bit older and a bit more confident in my own ability as a director, I've sort of not only embraced that, but I've also tried to lean more into the auteur-y stakes of it all. Try to be a little bit more story-based, more actor-based, but then equally it depends on the project, depends on how much time you've got. Don't get me wrong, you've made two single take action movies on an absolutely miniscule budget. insane vision to that, that you've pulled off with aplomb twice. Thank you. I mean, in terms of being a safe pair of hands, like the WWE doesn't sort of hand you the keys to two of their franchise movies, like without some level of trust, right? All that is to say that over the last week or so, I've been catching up with my gaps in the James Nunn filmography to such an extent that I would now like to declare myself a think we can all agree that was worth the one hour, wasn't it? That was a time well spent. ALICE That was outstanding. And very flattering. And also, I... Man, I mean, my ego is taking the bear of me right now, because I kind of just want to start a university degree in my honour and play that as people walk through the door. You've got to write, you're writing the course. I mean, that will neatly dovetail into my BA media studies from University of Sunderland, to be fair. So, I mean, this is, it's the perfect marriage. Can I hear that again? Please, please make it your ringtone. That's yes, please. But I will make that my ringtone. It's the it's the tail of it as well. That kind of Reveille the echo. It doesn't. It doesn't stop. You've got some like Nolan-esque shepherd tone going on. Yes. Yeah, I very much model my jingle work on Christopher Nolan. People, I get that a lot. We're going to talk about one more shot on the next. episode of the podcast and joining me to talk about it will be a new member of the James Nunn cinematic universe who is connected via six degrees of James Nunn to you. His name is Ben Malaby. He is also a director who is part of a group of directors with another director called Tom Levin, who I believe you went to university with. mind blown emojis. So Ben very kindly watched both of the movies so we could talk about them on the podcast. And I told him I was going to be chatting to you. Did he have any questions? He's also a university lecturer. So he's very, he like, he knows how to phrase these things. This amount of waffle is simply to say that I will now be playing in a question live from Ben Malaby, who will be appearing on the next episode of dodge this. Hi James, so I've made some short films and I've done some long takes in them, like one take short films and when the take is working I describe it as like a feeling of like electricity and I'm just wondering like is that your experience too and after like day 30 are you still like oh my god here we go this is the take can you speak to that experience of like knowing that absolutely every beat has to be right and when you're filming it and it's happening and you know that you've got the take What's that? What's that feel like for you? Okay, great. Yeah. Thanks me Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Thank you Well, I must correct Ben in that I shot this movie in 21 days I Corrected him. Don't you worry about yeah, okay We had I'd love to have 30 days So yeah, do you know what? I think this is perhaps where getting older and understanding me and film and everything a little bit more, there's the saying, you don't finish, you just stop. And it's like, you never, as an art historian, never really, I'm personally never really happy because... done is better than perfect. Yeah. I could just keep going. Um, and it's time and budget and things that just stopped me because I'm, we have to, we have, otherwise we just die. We'd just be shooting the one take for five days and we just curl up and die. So, um, I do get that feeling that he's describing where I get like tingles like on my arms and like. back and I get this like orgasmic sense of self that we really over-delivered and achieved. But truthfully, even when I get that, in this instance, I don't stop. Because the goal of the day is normally we've got one shot to shoot today. And if I've got it by like an hour in, I'm not just going to write this all go home. I'm just going to keep doing the shot. Yeah, I'm just going to keep going until because and generally speaking, what we found or what I found is that the tapes do get better. So. Yeah, what he's saying is true. I do get that feeling. And if that wasn't the one thing I had to do in the day and I and I was shooting 20 shots in the day and I'm like, that's the one. That's it. Magic. But a lot of the time. It is my technical nature pushing me on that goes, either that was fantastic or I need to stop doing these now. And maybe I haven't got a fantastic one, but I've got a great one. But if I don't keep moving, I'm going to sacrifice another four or five shots. So there's a rambling answer to that. Hopefully he can decipher it. Mason- Yeah, I hope so. And I sort of have follow up questions regarding the nature of the long takes. You know, if you get two, three takes of a... say seven to 10 minute stretch. There's each of those is going to have nuances of difference in each, right? Some of those perhaps glaringly obvious to the audience, someone in the background stumbles, you notice someone doing something slightly wrong, you know, it's not framed exactly how you want it. Some of them are things that only you're going to notice. But what is your process for selecting which of those takes? make it into the movie? How do you kind of, you know, balance the columns? And a sort of sub question, if you will, or I.I. Roman numerals. What is, once you got into the edit, what is a problem that you spotted or faced with the footage that you had and a solution that you had to come up with? How did you solve that problem? Yeah. Okay. So the part one answer is. I'll try and remember part two, I know it was very long. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm remembering it all, I know. Part one was... You have to remember who's scene is. So inevitably there will be a case where, like you said, someone's strong, someone's weak. So it might be like take seven, Scott was amazing. Take eight, Waleed was amazing. But take nine... they were both great. And then you kind of have to sit there and think, well, whose moment is this about? Is it do I really need this to be like about them, their characters, something plot related, or is this about the most action version of this? For the fans at home, they're going to be like, oh, the fight's better in that one, even if their performance is slightly less good. So that is where the selecting takes in the traditional sense comes in. but it is harder because you're then having to find a way to get in and out of those takes. And generally we've pre-planned the takes, but they might not always link up. So it might be that, you know, there is one instance in this movie where I went for the better take of a couple of actors, but the front, the kind of hidden cut didn't line up so well. It's the worst cut in the movie from my point of view. But I think If it was the first movie, I may have not done that because I was trying to convince you all that maybe we didn't have any hidden cards. Because I think I realized with the reception of number one, everyone kind of knows that there's a few hidden cards in there. So I just went with what I thought was the better performance on this occasion. So there's that. And then the part two of the question, which you might have to remind me what you said. I can definitely wind the tape back 20 minutes to when I got around to that. Which was, what is one of a problem that you faced post shooting that you were like, oh yeah, such as the cut not matching well or, I mean, you never want to hear, fix it in post. But I imagine sometimes with a movie like this, you just have to. The cut problem is the biggest one because if the cut didn't line up at all, it would look awful. We didn't run into those instances in this. We got away with it, but we very nearly could have. Um, the other way I try to fix things is with, you know, distraction, you know, smoke and mirrors. So like I'll, I'll put in some ADR in the background or I'll put a gunshot noise, or I'll put something in to try and take your attention, or I'll put a jank in the cameras or I'll color grade a certain bit of the screen lighter and I'll darken the other part of the screen so that you're on you're not looking at the bad bit. So there's like meticulous tricks that I'm using all the way through the movie because nothing's, it's never perfect. And especially, you know, on this one where we really didn't have the time to make things perfect. So there's a whole melangerie, menagerie, melangerie, and there's a whole smorgasbord, a buffet, there's a whole buffet of things going on. You're wearing lingerie? You on the shoot? Yeah. Okay. A melange? I want to say melange, but I will also accept menagerie. Is that the word I was thinking about? Do you know what? I tried a new word, and I'm glad that you were here. Mate, you owned it. You read the word of the day, and all you need to do is try and say that word somewhere throughout the day, right? And if some dickhead pulls it out and underlines it... then that's on that dickhead and I was that dickhead today. So I apologize. Don't apologize. We're all learning. We're all just learning as we go, ultimately. You talked a little bit about the fan reaction to the first movie or people pointing things out. And I've heard you talking a little bit about sort of taking into account fans' reactions to the first movie when you approached the second movie. They wanted... more fights, they wanted more close quarters, yada, yada. How do you approach that kind of feedback? What differentiates a bad review from a useful piece of feedback that we can take on board going forward? Oh crikey man. These are multi, these are like multi-layered dissertation style questions. There's a... Let me play in the jingle again while you're thinking. Great space work. Reverb, man, I love it. I feel like Skeletor is going to burst through. Tell me you're old without telling me you're old. Men of a certain age, the Castle Grayskull playset with a rotating throne. I opened the trap door. We all had it. Who remembers trap door? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was I going to say? Christ. I think to encapsulate it is like, when do you think, yeah, maybe I should listen to the audience. And when do you think, I mean, it's my movie. I'll tell you what I want it to be. You can separate. I mean, it's again, it's getting a bit older, you know, and make, you know, I think this is like my eighth or ninth movie. So I'm much more of a confident filmmaker now than I was at the beginning. At the beginning, I was just, you know, I was... I was sort of messing around, really, wasn't I? Because I was living my dream and I was making films. And it was like, do you want to make a film? Yes, of course. And now it's your job. I've always had this instinctual ability to kind of put things together. And my taste obviously isn't off piste enough that it doesn't sell. But I don't know if I necessarily always put the level of thought that I perhaps should have into some of my choices. Whereas, you know, as I get older and have made movies and think more about the movies I want to make and the career I really want to, you know, the hill I want to die on. I kind of lean into those decisions a bit more. So my opinion is much more focused. But then equally, there's this horrible culture with reviewing and I'm not going to get on a soapbox and complain about, well, maybe I am. Get on the soapbox, James. you know, sometimes feel like they have to tell you every single reason they hated something and they can't just they can't just accept that what it was, you know, like, of course, this movie isn't Captain Phillips or Saving Private Ryan. Like we don't we don't have Tom Hanks. It's not Spielberg. We haven't got Deakins. We haven't got 100 million. You know, we haven't got the toys and the tools that but they and not everybody can the difference between the movie you're making and the movie that they see next to it on Sky or whatever. The same screen, ultimately. The same screen. And you're sharing. So you're sharing. So I think when I say I listen to the reviews and I read the reviews, what I'm trying to do is decipher, like, what's, what is helpful? Like what's the bit, where's the nugget in there that is going to upgrade the movie we're making? As opposed to... sweating too much over like, someone said this and that's not right. And you know, it's like, I get, I take that on board. Like, okay, maybe there was slightly, but equally we're a movie, guys. Like, I mean, so yeah, this, this you can normally tell. I think when I read through them, I can tell what fans kind of want, what, what honest true fans really want and what what someone might call a Karen style comment. And my mom's called Karen. So you're saying we can expect Yuri Boyka in the third installment of this movie. Do you know what? I don't know. He looks in the mirror, he goes through the mirror and we turn back. He pulls his face mask off like Mission Impossible and it's Boyka all along. And then he pulls the microchip off of his throat. It's basically the plot of Mission Impossible 2. Tandy Newton's going to do it. And you could be the budget John Woo. But I've been called worse. It's a difficult question to answer, but I think what I try to do is we're trying to respond to Scott's fan base and hopefully what people like and enjoy, but then also to win that with what we like to do. 100%. Yeah. I think that seems like a very fair way to approach it, right? It's a pragmatic and realistic way of making a movie that is funded for reasons that you have to deliver a certain product, right? I think I've always known actually. This is where people are going to go, are you, you know, you're, you're maybe not as worthy as some of the filmmakers, the making like kitchen seat drama and stuff like that. And that's great. It's got a place, but you know, the kind of filmmaker I always wanted to be was to get bums on seats and to, I'm not making this movie just for my mum to watch at home and be like, Oh, well done, son. Like I'm trying to hear as many of Scott's fans as possible with something they'd really enjoy. Um, you know, a bit of escapism and so I kind of have this phrase in my head where I'm like, you know, not making this my mom necessarily. I'm making this pretty full Which is so crazy that you say that because I basically make this podcast for that exact reason so that she knows what I'm up to. Oh, Simon's mom. You should be very proud of him. Oh, bless you for saying that. It's very interesting to, to hear you say that because I think I'm very filmmakers coming out of the UK making more genre pictures. I think perhaps internationally a British film is a thing. People have expectations in the head of what that means. But I think with more sort of channels and outlets for movies, there are more places to make a shark movie that is ostensibly a British movie. getting more into the genre scene as filmmakers. Yeah, entirely true. It's more you, you could sell a genre film better around the world, more so than a kitchen sink drama in a council estate in England that, you know, only English people are going to be able to draw a connection to, you know, it's the same in this, again, that's not a new phenomenon. Like, there's a reason that British romcoms with Hugh Graham led the way in the nineties over anything else British, and that was because Americans liked seeing this slightly befuddled Hugh Grant falling in love with someone. We all did. We all did, and me too. I did Notting Hill Before Christmas, I forgot how good that movie is. But it's, so, you know, there are genres that work and don't work. Gangster stuff sells to a degree, not completely English gangster stuff sells, but... period will sell. That's why the Royals does well, things like that. So you kind of have to like look into the genre specifically before you get into it. I work in kind of high concept genre, I suppose, like a shark movie, Trans-Ace anywhere. And then that's when you're kind of leaning into, why is there no big name necessarily leading that particular shark movie? Like obviously the shallow says Blake Lively or something like that, which is great. And she's fantastic in that movie. Why doesn't sharkbait have a Blake Lively in it? And the truth is that's a shark movie. Like the shark is what people are going to see more than the cast. So there really wasn't the need to, I would have loved to have had an American cast. I got an English cast and I love them to bits and they were fantastic. And we had a lot of fun shooting that movie. But like, if you are a low budget, English movie shooting in Malta, for example, and again, had a great time in Malta. Shot a few things there now. Actually did something with David Williams and Russell Crowe this summer. But if you're bringing people over from America, it's just more. America have a real film industry and England have a film industry, but it's slightly insignificant compared to that size industry. And it's, it's cool show business. Like LA is a, is a city set up for show business. London necessarily, like the film industry is like a mile squared in London. That's true. Yeah. So, so, and they've got unions and things and everyone wants a Winnebago and, you know, things like that. And it's, it's cool. They've earned the right to get that and they get that in America, but when you're fundamentally a somewhat low budget English movie, it's harder to. provide all those things. So that's probably why you don't you see less big names in these movies and that's because there's a whole thing that comes with it, which is big hotels, green rooms, things like that and baggage. I saw some baggage. Yeah, but not. But it can be positive baggage because equally for us to grow or wants to come into a movie like his like a lot more people are going to watch a movie because Russell Gray's in it. So it's all swings around about. Did you send him shark bait? I didn't send him sharp eight on this occasion. He would have made better great shark in fairness. Let's talk a little bit about the one shots. How do you what is the collective term for these movies? One shots. The shot. The shot movies. Two shots. One shot so far. To. You know what? Yeah, I mean, hmm. I know what I want the third one to be called if I'm lucky enough to make it. We all do. Surely. It's surely it's one last shot, isn't it? Well, of course it is. Yeah, of course. But then I don't know. I have been racking my brains on what the box set would be called. And I haven't. I can't necessarily say I've plumbed for one or the other right now, but one shot collection. Sure. Three shots. I don't know. Presumably it comes as like a commemorative shot glass. My DP actually bought me a commemorative shot glass as a wrap gift. What an absolute lad. It's classic budget deacons behaviour. Well, you know, there's a drinking game that's been circulating for both one shot movies, is that every time Scott kills someone, you take a shot. Wow. People have had to reduce it to taking a third of a shot. That is incredible. Let me dial back in to the one shots then with a question from Ben about, we were talking about taking on board audience feedback and that sort of thing. And this sort of leads into the idea of pacing. I'll hand it over to Ben, who I said, just sort of, if you have a question, start it with, Hi James. And because he didn't know which ones we're going to use, every single one starts with Hi James, which I just find delightful. Amazing. Hi James, I feel like a big part of your films is the fight choreography and I've heard some people describe it as like learning a dance which I always think is so interesting and a lot of this film is choreography of these films and I'm just so curious about like your fear of almost audience exhaustion at seeing something so relentless. And, and like, if you could speak to what you do, like how it is that you were able to keep refreshing it. And where does that come from? Is that like, every department talking about what you can do in any given moment to just kind of know that the audience need a bit of a jolt, a bit of a wake up, and we're going to hit them with this now and this is going to, this is going to energize everything again. I'm glad it's not just me who can't phrase a question in one sentence. You two have been to the school of Master of None. Hang on one second. turned it to zoo radio. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Please remember the question because I can't play it back in. We haven't got time. Why use 10 words when you can use a thousand? Isn't that how we all wrote our university essays? His question was about choreography and I'm very blessed in that I have a fantastic Tim Mann is my fight choreographer. Dan Stiles is my stunt choreographer. Tom Lee is my military tactics advisor. And the instruction is always, well, the instruction is clear. You design a fight in one shot. It's gonna take place here. You're gonna have this kind of space. And then it will be like, but I'm gonna film it like this. I'm gonna be inside a cage looking out on it. That's your parameters or we're going to be on a moving train. That's your parameters or stop. We've seen you do this like flip kick before. So do something different. And, you know, that's like a good example of where feedback on the first movie really helped on the second movie because everybody loved in the first movie this kind of stealth sequence where Scott is just like slitting people's throats in the radio control room. And I was like, well, I really want to do that scene again, but I don't want to give the fans the same scene. So in movie two, I'm going to tell I'm going to do that scene. I'm going to tell it from the point of view of the bad guys. And you're not going to see Scott. So you're actually going to walk around with the bad guys and see them being taken out. So I get my inspiration from all over, really. It's an it's a quest to kind of hit those same beats that everybody likes, but tell them slightly differently. And. Yeah. And then, you know, between Tim coming up with the choreography, me commenting on the choreography, Dan Stiles working out how to like build the props and the environment into it. And then Tactics Tom coming in and saying, we would never do a ninja roundhouse kick. I would literally just, I would literally just rip his ears off. They don't train Navy SEALs in roundhouse kicks and those, you know, sort of Yuri Boyka late kicks. Extraordinary. Well, that's kind of one of the things when we're talking about responding to the fancy date, like I get comments like, not enough flash 720 fly around the air three, four times kicks. I'm like, but I'm trying to create like a realistic Navy SEAL movie here, guys. It's like, it's just doesn't, you know, you just knee him in the balls and shoot him in the head. That's it. I see you've been through the basic training. But nobody wants to see that either. trying to weigh up reality versus audience expectation and truth. Hopefully that answers the question. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Here's a question. Something that myself and erstwhile hosted the podcast, Matthew Highton, he's not dead, he's just very busy. We speculate endlessly about the budgets when it comes to DTV movies and I know there's, there's parameters and there's probably enormous fluctuation. I remember Scott Adkins, letting it slip somewhere that, uh, accident man to hit man's holiday was, was made for something like $2 million, which seems unfathomable for how great that movie turned out. Can, can you, I mean, obviously I don't want you to, you know, drop numbers or anything, but can you talk a little bit about you approach budgets, you know, the compromises that you will or won't make and how you make that money go so far? Well, I can't get into budgets with you, not because I don't want to, but more because I don't run them. Gotcha. Oh, also Ben had this to say very briefly about budgets. James, where'd you get the money for your films from, James? That feels like he covered it pretty much with that. Great work on the voice as well. Nothing like that character from Jeepers Creepers asking a question. Yeah, look, I'm the director so I'm running the creative side of the movie making and then obviously we have the producer who's running the budget side of the movie. And I'm very fortunate in that the one-shot movies I make with a very dear friend of mine a master of squeezing the budget as much as we can to try and put as much on screen as we can to give the fans as much as we can. So I trust him implicitly when I'm kind, you know, and that's because we start the first one of the first movies we made together. I mean, we've actually we really came up together about 15 years ago. I was the first AD and he was like the runner driver. So we've known each other for that long. And now he's producing my movies. And part of that journey was he did, he was a line producer, so he ran the budget for Green Street 3, you know, where we had the price of a small car to make that movie. And now we're working on the kind of, you know, now I guess we've got like the coffee budget on a Sam Mendes movie. I don't know. Sure. Mendes is a beast for a flat white. Oh, he loves it. He loves it. Out of control. So, yeah. tricky little habit. I bet he picked that up on Bond. Yeah. So I think the, you know, without Ben kind of in my corner, kind of steering me when I kind of have these wacky epiphanies and then we do go toe to toe, like that's where the real arguments are. And not in a horrible way, but in a creative way, you know, I'll go, I really want to do this. And he'll look at me and be like, we can't afford to do that. And I'll go, if I lose this, this and this, can I do that? probably I'll try to make it work. But then he will also ground me and shake me and say, but you realise if you're doing that, you're losing this moment and this moment's important because of this and da-da-da. So I obviously take a lot of credit for the one-shot franchise, but really without Ben behind my shoulder, it wouldn't be what it is. X million dollars when clearly they're made for a quarter of X million dollars. James, in our final few minutes, would you like to participate in a quick fire round finally? Yeah. I mean, it was sort of a rhetorical question, so thank you. Thank you for agreeing. I didn't really like it. Yeah, you've loaded the dice. If anything, it's a breath of fresh air after the university dissertation questions that we've had previously. James, here we go. Quickfire questions. If your producer got you a real airport for this movie, do you think he could get you the White House for one last shot? Absolutely. Yes. I can't wait to see that. On the movie Sharkbait, one of the musical contributors was Austin Dickinson. Is that the same Austin Dickinson from Metalcore bands Rise to Remain and Asliens, aka son of Bruce Iron Maiden Dickinson? You are correct. Yes, it is Bruce Dickinson's son. Greg Hyre. Man, one other person is going to be so psyched about that. Loves dinosaurs. Same as me. There's no time for follow-up questions. I've boxed myself into a quickfire round. In both one shot movies at various junctures. I can't hear you there question. The music has the music has ridden. The music got too dramatic. It got so big. I've had to pause the music. I don't know. Yeah. Ask the question, though, because I really it was building towards something. I know it was the music. I got swept up in the music as well. I fucked it off. Here we go. I'm still going to do in the sort of quick fire voice in both one shot movies. At various junctures, characters are wearing Secret Service-style earpieces. Are they in fact being fed lines or direction like George W. Bush at that one press conference? Generally no. Has that happened once? Yes. Naming no names. We'll move on. In one more shot, when Scott's character rolls down a small flight of stairs in a very impressive way. Is that in fact Scott or is it a very smooth Texas switch? Scott does his own stunts. He rolled down those stairs. Scott does not have a double on these movies. He is an absolute bloody legend, that man. That leads me into part two of this question, which is, how the f*** did you do the high fall onto the stairs? Oh, I tell you, I have to kill you, mate. Can't share that. And there's no behind the scenes footage. I'm livid. I take it to my grave, unfortunately. God damn it. There. OK, only a couple of questions left in the quickfire round. Not that quick. Does the film commissioner of Malta have compromising photos of all the up and coming action directors? Probably. He's luring them all in. Everyone's over there. Incredible scenes. It does look beautiful, to be fair to it. Well, if you know anything about how to put a movie together, you know, there are tax credits available in certain areas of shooting and Malta offer, it's not a secret, Malta offer a very generous tax rebate. And with that, you obviously are using Multis service companies, Multis providers, Multis crew who are excellent. And it's just low budget directors, because Ridley Scott shot Napoleon and Gladiator 2 recently. So whatever he's got on me, he's also got on Ridley. Ridley Scott, good lord. And he's been around a while. He's probably got a few stories. The final question. Thank God. I'm so sorry to keep you this long. Final question in the quickfire round. Is the music still playing? I'll just I'll just fade it in quickly for dramatic effect. get rid of it. After you nailed it so well in one shot, why in one more shot does nobody say the title of the movie out loud? Oh, what a wasted opportunity. Did you feel like it was crowbarred into the first one? Was it called one shot in the script process? The line in the first one was in Ashley's script that she got sent to be part of the movie. And when we came to actually shoot the movie, the sides that were issued on the day, one shot had actually been taken out of the sides of the movie. Because I think either me or my producer Ben had decided now it's cheesy to say the name of the movie in the take. And there were takes where she says it and there were takes where she didn't say it. And for whatever reason, I can't remember at the time, I went with the take where she said it, little did I know it would end up in the trailer. Little did I know that I would be on the Dodge This podcast. One answering your question is why one more shot was never uttered in the movie. But I can tell you this, it was never written into the script for number two. So I must apologize if that was your favorite bit. Yeah, I was, I mean, I loved the movie, but Unfortunately, it was completely ruined by the title not being said. That's really the only movies I will watch, other ones, where they say, I'm free. I guess you could call this a Shawshank redemption. You know, that sort of thing. I plead you may have done it already, but if you haven't, there should be an episode of Dodge This where you literally go into the best uses of saying the title of the movie. What? That's another good example of that. I mean, Batman and Superman don't count, do they? I guess you could say, Batman begins. Oh, well, it's funnier if it's not in the movie. I think that's the bit. The bit is just having the it make no sense. I guess there really are things to do in Denver when you're dead. I'll think about it if I do a trilogy. You've said if you do a trilogy a lot, but you've also. you know, you've brought it up so much that I feel like there's a weight of expectation on this third movie getting commissioned. In the sort of pantheon of third movies in action franchises, there is a tendency to introduce comic relief. Die Hard with a Vengeance, Samuel L. Jackson, offer my services as that. In one last shot. I know I sound English, but I can do a very possible American accent. You know, Jake, we've got one last shot to make this thing work. Hired. Outstanding. What better place to end the podcast with me getting a job? Why do you have to be the comic relief? Could you can you? Could you just not do that seriously? Could you do a serious version? Absolutely. Jake, we've got one last shot to make this work. Oh my God. I think I'm looking at the next series of Jack Ryan. That was really good. This is my self tape. Consider it submitted. I can't wait to hear back from you. Please do let me know if it's a no though, because that also never happens. It'd just be really nice to know one way or the other. James, thank you for giving up so much of your time on a school night. You're very welcome, Simon. Appreciate it. It was lovely speaking with you. delightful chat that was with director James Nunn. Thanks once again James for joining us for a very wordily questioned chat and thanks for giving up so much of your time and tolerating my shenanigans. Hey if you've listened this far thank you so much for listening. I was very excited to interview James Nunn and you know what I would love to interview any other action movie directors who are making cool action movies out in the world. If you've got ideas, thoughts, or connections to action movie directors who you'd love to hear on the show, please get in touch. You can do that via Twitter at dodgethispod, or with me personally, through all the social medias on my website, simonfielder.com. Thanks so much for listening. As I'm sure you can tell, a whole bunch of TLC goes into making these episodes. RIP, left eye. And so if you have enjoyed it, a little review and a rating on Apple or Spotify goes a hell of a long way or even tell a friend posted on your socials. Shout it from the proverbial rooftops. And if you want to go the extra double whole hog mile, there is a donation link in the show notes. In the meantime, as promised, I will be back for the next episode where myself and friend, director and educator Ben Malaby. Talk about one more shot in depth. No spoilers, but we did enjoy it quite a lot. Hope you had a lovely time. We'll see you in the next one. Good bye. The eternal sunshine of a spotless mind The Breakfast Club Cheddar Island The Serious Man The Last King of Scotland District 9 Big Fish The Warrior Training Day United 93 Vertigo Unfuliacube Doubt Ocean's Eleven And Bruce I'm a dude Real Window Police Academy Inception Repro Man Sunset Boulevard Chasing Army Eat the Weapon Apex Avatar Iron Man Ed Wood Ghosts