Dude, did you see when you could see the laser in his helmet?
Yeah, look at that.
That's good.
Yeah.
Amazing what we get excited about here.
- Exactly. - Look, a laser!
Left.
Right.
I thought when the whole thing is rumbling and it's going like this
and back, like, that's the intensity level we want.
Everything has to build as we're doing it here.
Look back at the kid. Kid, forward now.
And let's cut.
Cut it!
It's so hard.
I mean, it's not wrong...
One thing unifying us is we all love Star Wars.
Right? That was a prerequisite.
Yeah.
But other than that, I don't know that we all have anything else in common
as far as how we came in to directing.
But each and every one of you came in and learned so quickly
until you were actually pushing the medium in a different way,
and allowing us to create the tools around what your needs were.
And it was really fun for me.
I've never been in this position 'cause I'm usually directing.
On this project,
it was interesting working with many Directors.
Very lucky to work with Dave Filoni to get a strong vision of how he wanted,
and Jon Favreau wanted the show to go.
And then it was really interesting working with Rick and Deb and Bryce and Taika,
'cause they all brought different things to the show and party.
They all had different perspectives of the same vision,
and it was wonderful to be able to execute that.
Action.
Jon Favreau explained like we were kind of like this Dirty Dozen,
Magnificent Seven type of crew
that he wanted to put together to help tell these stories,
and wanted the different voices and personalities
each of the filmmakers were bringing to the table,
and wanted to accentuate that and bring that to the world of Star Wars.
Really, for me, you go from never doing anything in live-action
and shooting a Star Wars anything,
it's a very complex arrangement of ideas and reality
and imagination running together,
and I'm very fortunate to have Jon here as, like, a mentor
for things that he knows are hang-ups in live-action
or are things that are difficult, so he helps steer what I'm doing,
and it's actually a continuation of my education.
It's more of a passerby-moment throwaway. It's not like a focused...
Yeah.
He walks through and then we sit on it,
and then we cut.
It's like Apocalypse Now.
It adds a little menace.
It also gives some backstory.
Remember when Threepio's head gets blasted,
and they all walk by, in Empire,
and they pan over to it, and they don't see it?
No, I don't remember that. It's a deep cut for me.
I started in traditional 2D animation, all hand-drawn.
I used to have hundreds of drawings on the floor of my office
that were not the good ones.
My first job was King of the Hill, actually.
Drawing a bunch of Texans drinking beer on a fence,
which isn't what I went to art school for.
It's harder to draw them than people think.
I worked for Disney in the TV division, and then I worked on Airbender.
The Last Airbender at Nickelodeon was a super fun show,
'cause very anime, and I love anime and action.
And then George with Clone Wars.
And that was really the big change for me because I'd never done CG before.
When I got there, he said, "We're not gonna do storyboards.
"We're not gonna draw anything".
I'm like, "Okay, but that's what I do".
So the one skill I had was rendered largely useless.
But it wasn't really, because it's still in all the language
of making, you know, a film.
I still sketch all the time, even today for this stuff.
But George taught me to think more in terms of a camera and blocking
and how to set up cameras for a whole shoot and staging.
So this language was kind of built in me slowly over ten years,
and George always talks in terms of live-action.
And so he really got me interested in, well, maybe it's something I'd like to do.
That's an interesting story of how you guys met,
or how you got the job, I should say.
Oh, yeah, I got the job as almost a...I almost didn't get the job,
because I thought it was a practical joke.
I was working at Nickelodeon, and somebody called from Lucasfilm Animation,
and I'm like, "There is no Lucasfilm Animation".
I thought I'd been excited about Revenge of the Sith
coming out and talked about it a lot,
that the guys from SpongeBob were just
busting my chops over Star Wars. I thought it was a prank call.
It was this producer who I'd never heard of from "Lucasfilm Animation",
and they're doing the "Clone Wars", and I go, yeah.
And I'm being like, all...
You get so tired of being picked on.
And you're just like, "This is the SpongeBob guys. I know it is".
I'm like, "Oh, you're making..."
"Uh, yeah, we're doing a..."
Yeah.
And I said, "Oh, so you're making Clone Wars".
"But you already did that, right?"
I'm talking like that.
You're just talking...
And getting to Clone Wars.
She said, "Well, this is gonna be a computer animation,
"you know, and a whole new series".
And I'm like, "I don't do computer animation".
She's like, "You've been recommended to us by George".
I'm like, "Really? George recommended me, huh?"
And this is the way I'm talking.
Oh, yeah?
She goes, "I'd love..."
He's got confidence.
"I would love to meet with you".
And I'm like, "Oh, I would love to meet with you".
So mysterious.
And so this whole thing...
And then, it's dawning on me, the way she's talking...
But I was like, "No, I don't want to buy into this.
"I always buy, I'm so naive".
And I said, "Look..."
She's about to hang up, 'cause we made the appointment.
I said, "I got to ask, who put you up to this?"
She's like, "Excuse me?" I'm like, "Who made you do it?
"Is this the guys from SpongeBob? Is this Vince? Who is this?"
And she's like, "Is this Dave Filoni?" And I'm like, "Yeah".
She said, "You work on The Last Airbender?"
I said, "Well, yeah". She says, "Well, you're the guy".
Then I realized, it just clicked. I'm like, "Oh, my God".
This is literally what I said.
You have no idea how the guy I am.
I am so the guy.
I was like...
"I have a Jedi costume I'm making in my garage right now".
And she later told me she wanted to hang up right then and there,
but she'd already made the appointment, so she kept it.
And then, I had to go through two rounds of meeting people
and then meet George.
And when I met him, I had to go up to the main house,
and I had to sit there and, you know, at a table.
You know, he's got my portfolio,
my little art portfolio of animation things I've done.
He's going through it like this.
And I'm just sitting there like, "Yeah, I'm not getting this,
"'cause he sees the best in the business, right?"
And all I can really think is...
You said, "That's from The Natural".
Right, right?
All I could really think, though,
"When I'm in line for Revenge of the Sith, I can outclass any nerd there".
"I got the best story ever".
Because I've been in a room with George Lucas.
My cred for my opinion has just shot up.
And then he closes my portfolio and he looks at me, and he says,
"Well, a Jedi would do this".
And he starts on this elaborate description of
how a Jedi would handle a negotiation more like a Samurai.
More like, almost like a mafia, putting their lightsaber on the table, saying,
"It's how we'll do business. If you don't listen to me, this is kind of..."
It's very much in the Toshiro Mifune mindset of,
"Here's the sword, boom. We're gonna negotiate now on my terms".
And he's talking about...everything he was saying,
it was like getting incredible validation for all the arguments I have with friends.
'Cause I was like, "This...", I was like, "I really got what you were saying".
But you don't say anything. You just listen.
And I listen to him and listen to him, and it was about ten minutes.
Then the producer said, "That's it. Your time's up".
And he says, "Okay". And then I stood up, and I was like,
"Well, I'm never gonna see this guy again".
I said, "Nice to meet you". I shook his hand.
He said, "Very nice to meet you". And I left.
I went to the green room next to his office,
and I was like, "Whew, that's awesome. This was a great experience".
'Cause he was cool, he was super knowledgeable.
He was everything that you thought the guy who created Star Wars was.
Great experience.
And then the producer opens the door and says,
"He likes you. You got the job". And she shut the door.
It was just like...
Really, for me, I felt with the pilot,
my job was to show this guy as he is, as he has been:
A hardened, kind of weather-beaten person
that has been through things we can't imagine
and is just doing a job.
And his job is hunting down beings and turning them in.
The consequences of that, the morality of it, "I get paid".
And then everything's gonna shift right at the end, you know, and it's that pull
between greed and being more selfless,
which is fundamental to the human experience.
And for Mando now, he's made choices,
and how is he going to improve himself.
You are Mandalorian. Surely you can ride this young foal.
Dave Filoni, great collaborator,
great animator, Director, storyteller, writer.
But also, he has a strong intuition about what George would say.
He's an encyclopedia of all of the Star Wars lore.
You can ask him anything. "Hey, what about this shoulder pad?"
Dave Filoni will say,
Well, that's not actually what it looks like,
but let me tell you why and let me tell you the history of why.
There's a purity to his relationship to Star Wars in general,
that it's just like...it's really obvious.
There's no Dave Filoni ego.
It's just always all about Star Wars and George
and the stuff that's important.
We wouldn't be able to do this
without Dave Filoni.
He is the truest lover of the material.
He's so well-informed,
and knows exactly what would fit, what would make sense.
I think he, more than anyone, just sort of innately knows
what's right and what's wrong for Star Wars.
Okay, cut.
When you hit our set,
you were in a different zone that I'm not used to seeing,
because I'm coming out of...
Even when working fast on an indie, you're shooting,
maybe you're doing eight pages, you're like a hero.
You would go in there and have your game plan.
Also you love, what I also love about you is you love action.
- I do. - It's in your bones.
You're like, "Could I have a few more Stormtroopers?"
I really liked killing Stormtroopers.
And I was always like, "Take 'em".
Yeah, I mean, I loved all that stuff.
I'm a total...I love genre, so I came out of sci-fi and fantasy
like books, comics and video games.
So as soon as I could, you know...
'Cause I've been mostly doing television for the last while.
As soon as I was able to, I started choosing shows that I actually wanted to see.
Yeah, you do a lot of cool TV.
Yeah, I started...
Probably the first big one I got was Mr.Robot.
At the time, we didn't know what it was. It wasn't a big show.
So I just ended up sort of going by taste of
would I actually want to watch this, and what am I into?
Which sort of turned out to be sort of zombies and robots and aliens basically.
That sort of ended up leading to bigger and bigger shows,
just because of the nature of the genre.
But I think the difference with television is that
you're coming in to try to do something really ambitious, really quickly.
The only way to kind of do that is to prep it
as much as you can and come in planned.
But it's still really hard.
Just imagine...just overlap that
and then come down to it so you don't start already on it, okay?
Oh, copy that.
Deborah Chow was extremely efficient, and she liked to shoot,
and if you've got this many hours, then she's gonna use that many hours,
and you guys are all gonna work for it.
As a Director, the main thing I'm trying to do
with every scene I'm directing is just find some life.
It doesn't matter if an actor changes something and it's better,
or they want to change the blocking.
Even if I can't get a certain angle,
I'd rather have something that feels real and genuine and something alive about it.
And so I think it's very important that you not squish that
and that you let that breathe and you let there be an opportunity
to just have something happen.
I think with Star Wars, especially with it being the first television show,
you really want to do it justice.
So you do feel a responsibility, but I think it's more making sure
that everything sort of feels right to the world.
I'm in.
What line do you want me to take in here?
It's, uh, "I got it".
What? No.
"I have it".
"I have it"?
- No, no, no. - Your line.
My walking line.
You're walking here. You're walking.
I was like, "You don't know..."
- But yeah. - Keep walking.
It's like two lines, you don't get it?
It's just straight.
Oh, I'm going to her.
Yeah, you're going...I think for the first one,
'cause we're not on you. We're pretty much on her,
so you don't even have to come all this way back
unless it's just for the field.
Oh, I'm not keeping this?
You'll have it, but in our two-shot.
You're gonna walk into a profile two.
Mando!
I have it.
I've got the egg.
I love making these stories about misfits and folks
that don't actually ever get cameras pointed at 'em,
so for me, like, the Jawa stuff and just seeing this monster, you know,
sandcrawler tread in the middle of the volume was like,
I'm actually in Star Wars in this moment, 'cause, you know,
I'm standing underneath the Sandcrawler.
And you look at the volume and you go underneath it,
and it's like you're really looking up at the Sandcrawler.
And that was, for me,
one of the most rewarding and crazy experiences
of someone who just loves Star Wars. It's like, this is the scale.
I can actually feel what the scale of this thing really was.
And even though you play with it,
and you know that this is what it is in relation to your figures,
to be in it was pretty...
You had to talk to the Jawas. You had a lot of Jawas.
Yeah, I had a lot of...
Lot of Jawa work.
They were the only things that were alive...
...that I could deal with, yeah.
I was like, "People I can talk to".
Thank you.
And then on 6, it was just great to, again, have people.
Well, that was the opposite. That was only people.
Exactly.
And that's one that you wrote on.
That was cool, 'cause that was your voice.
Yeah, exactly.
I like that one a lot.
Yeah, so that was...
That's where you start to realize that we had different voices and different filmmakers, you know?
I was reaching out to Disney, they were like, "That one's kinda weird".
I was like, "Yeah!"
In the best way.
Each one's like a little mini-movie, that was the heist movie.
I liked that. We stuck to those rules,
and we talked about that a lot.
Exactly.
I think it works good, and it shows that Mando
doesn't wanna go with his old crowd.
Just like the good old days, Mando.
You're here, this thing is shut. You're here at the step.
And by the time you get here, that's already done.
I hadn't done much television. Most of what I've done has been in feature films.
Whatever concerns I might have had about working in TV were dispelled by Jon, I think,
in the way that he was thinking about what this is.
We're making a series that's connected, but we're all each been given
the freedom and the creativity to tell a story as we would
making a feature film.
Get that blaster out of my face, Mando!
It's kinda like, "Okay, whoa, oh, okay. All right".
- Cut. - Cut.
A job is a job.
I'm certainly squarely in that generation that Star Wars was a big part of my life
and just a big part of who I am creatively and what inspired my imagination,
and Star Wars was the first film I saw in a theater.
I was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father.
My dad took me to see it.
I remember waiting in the long line, having no idea what this was,
and seeing the film and being completely blown away.
Ha-ha!
It's been, for me, one of those things that's...
I think the way I've seen film, the way I've seen storytelling
has been shaped by that first experience seeing the film.
And to be here is a pretty phenomenal thing.
That's my favorite moment. Right there.
See, that's the moment. Like, it's...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You can spot it a mile away.
Yeah.
Very early on, my dad would just take me everywhere 'cause it was like,
I won't leave one more kid at home with my wife.
"Like, this is ridiculous". And so he had a business trip to Japan,
and he just took me. And I was 5 or 6 years old.
And in Japan, he had a dinner with George Lucas and Kurosawa,
and I was there.
Oh, my goodness!
I fell asleep during it.
I was really jet-lagged. But, you know, I remember those...
but it's in there. It's in your brain, it's in your brain.
But I remember those, I have those memories of, like, you know,
my head resting on his chest and hearing his voice,
and then hearing everyone else's voices, it's just kind of...
Yeah.
...staying. And also 'cause I really...
when I saw Jurassic Park for the first time,
I was 12 years old. I said, Oh, my God, this is possible now,
our entire lives have changed as storytellers, what we can do.
Getting the opportunity to work on something like this
has just been so amazing, just awe-inspiring.
By the way, now that you're done, and you did a great job,
we threw you in the deep end of the pool,
because that was such a difficult episode to do,
and we were like,
We gotta pick the new person who's never done this before 'cause they won't know how.
So she won't freak out.
She won't know how hard it is, what we're asking her to do, because we were,
with the forest and water and big mech shooting and background extras.
And it was too much, it was too much.
I did it with zero support.
No, it was incredible. And the truth is, is that so much of this process
is about iterating and reiterating, and figuring it out, and problem-solving,
and making breakthroughs.
I think it goes back to this thing of, like, when I watched Jurassic Park,
it just...oh, my God, I will get emotional,
but the power of storytelling is immense,
but if the magic act doesn't work then everything fails.
It's so satisfying.
Bryce's episode was a really unusual departure from all the other episodes,
because it was on an agrarian-type planet, very green, very forested.
And Bryce's emotional appreciation of the drama
and how to work with the actors was extraordinary to work with.
She was really a lovely Director.
We were peacekeepers,
protecting delegates, suppressing riots. Not what I signed up for.
How'd you end up here?
Let's just call it an early retirement.
She really, really focuses on the performances.
And she's fierce,
like, she's not going to take no for an answer.
Pause. You're looking around, just so that we can get that, you know, make sense?
Then you pull out your blaster,
then you look at Cara, Cara's looking at you. And then we go in.
For me, I'm an actor who's worked in a lot of movies
with a lot of visual effects and special effects.
So, maybe, I'm there to support the actors with
that experience to make it feel really honest and real and bring it back
to the characters and the dialogue and the scene work, and to just
make every single scene like a play.
You know, like a play that just exists outside of Star Wars.
I know. I know.
We would never have to cut around performance.
Because I knew...I was like,
if I can just make sure that in every single set-up, that I am, like,
Oh, my gosh, if we just had to live here the entire scene, it would be okay.
There's a real responsibility
working with these kinds of characters and these kinds of stories
and circumstances and all of that because it is meaningful to so many people.
Slow down a little bit.
This is not about my relationship with Star Wars.
This is about all of our relationships with Star Wars.
Hopefully, when folks watch The Mandalorian,
they'd feel our commitment to Star Wars, to the incredible story that this is.
We'll be ready.
I didn't start directing anything film-wise
till I was around about 30.
So, I started before that in stand-up, and comedy and theater,
and writing and directing. So Jemaine and I would
write and direct each other in things, 'cause no one would hire us
for any, like, "real" plays. And so, we're not like that,
"I want to be in this, like, fancy play and this, like, cool theater".
And they're like, "No".
So then we'd just go off and write our own stuff, and that's how I learned how to...
how to write and how to direct, and we'd have to make
all our own props and all our own costumes, and we'd be onstage
trying to make fishing lines and stuff.
But it's summer end, and way back before...my background's painting,
so I was already used to composition
and art and all that stuff.
But again...I didn't really...
I got so disheartened and disenchanted
by the whole gallery thing and art and the art world in general,
but then, through film, found a medium
with which to address everything that I was into.
So music and art and performance and writing and storytelling,
which was actually ultimately the thing.
But all of my first three films were super low-budget
and just talking about recycling things,
in What We Do in the Shadows, we said to Weta Workshop, I said to Rich
and one of those guys, "Is there anything you rejected from Lord of the Rings?
"Like creatures you thought you might want to use,
"and then just rejected them?" And they're like,
"Yeah, there's actually pieces of crap that we don't want".
So I'm like, "We'll take those".
It was like old teeth and you know, some, like,
old elf ears that had been thrown, discarded, and we're like,
"We'll make it a cool vampire with pointy ears".
Yeah, so I'm used to working like that, you know, just making do,
and smoke and mirrors.
But you got into visual effects too,
because by the time you showed up, you were sort of the...
experienced, you were sort of the ringer, 'cause you had done
Thor Ragnarok.
I'd done that, and a lot of the effects on What We Do in the Shadows as well.
I'd done a lot of commercials...
So over the years, I picked up jargon.
And...
I could trick the computer people into thinking I knew what I was talking about.
What sort of...
Well, I mean,
I can't remember any of it now.
Well...
I found it very difficult hanging out with the other Directors.
They're very arrogant.
Bryce is...I wouldn't say I'm a hardcore fan.
The whole production to be amateur. No one knew what they're doing.
The quality of the filmmaking, the quality of the sets was just abysmal.
I was quite frankly embarrassed to be involved.
Out here, we got Mr.Taika Waititi,
a wonderful action-comedy Director, so this is a treat.
Taika's, of course, done Thor, so he brings that experience.
You see the intensity in his mind and how he works.
He's serious, thoughtful, yet also playful.
He has an enthusiasm that's palpable.
Well...
he knew exactly what he wanted to shoot and had a sense of humor about it.
Come on, baby! Do the magic hand thing.
Taika knows how to find the humor in the action.
That's different than making fun of action, we don't make fun of it.
This whole series, though there's humorous moments,
it's a serious story. And it fits perfectly within that Star Wars canon.
It doesn't take itself 100% seriously, but it does believe in itself.
I really loved this way of working with all of these Directors.
And what also helped a lot was the presence of Jon and Dave around,
basically just to keep me from veering out of the lane too far.
It was a different experience to get to work
with other Directors in creating a show.
And we can also bounce ideas off each other, to say like,
"What do you think of this?" or "Does this make sense?"
And I just think the key is you hire good people.
Get caught up in what their talents are. I mean, obviously,
to have done the work that they've all done, they're all really talented.
But the big difference is, what kind of person are you?
We all get in a room, and I think,
because this is so new to many of us,
that we all get together on it, and it becomes a real team thing.
Everybody's bringing their unique perspective to this,
and I think that ultimately makes us stronger, makes this a better story.
They all ask questions about the script, and Jon and I are like,
"Ooh, we didn't see that". But then we're willing to fix it,
and find new ways to do things.
I don't know, it almost is like a Star Wars school.
I like hiring smart people.
To me, if you have smart people who are curious and creative,
but if they're inspired and they're sharp,
they'll be able to learn. And really, directing, what you're learning is
you have to learn every day, because you're presented
with a new set of circumstances, and you have to adapt.
If you stick to the playbook, you're not gonna succeed.
And that's what's different from writing or animation,
where opportunities present themselves, but at a much lower rate.
The opportunities are hitting you constantly,
but they might seem like challenges.
But really, somebody who's creative and who's smart will not be afraid to
kind of jump out of the plane before the parachute comes out after you.
And, so, everybody here are creatively brave.
That's really the unifying thing, you all have various levels of experience,
different backgrounds, different genres or media that you come from.
But everybody, I think there is something. I think that's why
everybody kind of clicked so well together.