Close Encounters of the Third Kind (w/ Sam Camp)

Eli Price (00:03.616)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmographies We are here on episode 40 Uh really starting to get rolling in our early stephen spielberg series um covering the movies of spielberg in the 70s and 80s kind of the first third of his career and um, yeah today I am excited to bring on

a three Pete guest in Sam Camp. And we're gonna be talking about close encounters of the third kind, which is a coincidence because this is like our third encounter on the podcast. What does it mean? That's the question. I want answers as Roy Neary does in the movie. But yeah, Sam, it's good to have you on. How are you doing this evening?

Sam (00:49.297)
What does it mean?

I must know.

Sam (00:57.351)
Yes.

Sam (01:02.342)
Yeah, it's good to be back. Doing well, doing well. Actually, I had never watched this movie up until this week. So it's a good excuse to watch another Spielberg film.

Eli Price (01:11.472)
great.

Eli Price (01:15.884)
Yeah, yeah. I've actually had some, I have some blind spots that I'll be filling in as I go through this series. So, um, the sugarland express was, uh, two movies ago and I had never seen that or, um, his TV movie duel before. So yeah, it's, it's fun to fill in some school bird blind spots. Yeah.

Sam (01:22.636)
Alright.

Sam (01:38.002)
Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Eli Price (01:41.268)
Uh, but yeah, um, Sam, uh, if you've, if you've heard Sam before, I think Sam was on Darjeeling limited episode and the interstellar episode, if I'm remembering correct. And so if you, uh, if you listen to this and you're like, man, I like that Sam guy, you know, go back and listen to those episodes. Um, but, uh, but yeah, if, if you have listened to those, then you probably remember that Sam, uh, works.

Sam (01:53.332)
Yeah.

Sam (02:00.726)
Thank you.

Eli Price (02:10.076)
Um, for Black Bee Ministries and more specifically, uh, a branch of that called the collision. They do a lot of stuff with pop culture and, um, you and Daniel, who was actually on for the last two episodes for Jaws and a creature feature draft, um, y'all have just started, um, a new, uh, it's, it's a new podcast, kind of like re formatting some things y'all were already doing, but

Sam (02:28.126)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:38.756)
Technically a new podcast, right?

Sam (02:40.75)
Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's a new launch of a podcast called Faith in Pop Culture. And we, for a while, we have been doing these live streams that we just called The Collision Live. And so we've sort of taken what we've learned from that. And now it's a video podcast primarily, but it's also available in audio form.

sort of wherever you listen. And we just, we look at things that are happening in pop culture, think about it, talk about it, try and break it down and just see how as Christians we can engage with culture, like what conversation should we be having? And, you know, what are some things that are maybe just a lot of outrage about maybe the wrong thing and that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of...

I feel like there's a lot of feelings about pop culture in the Christian community. And oftentimes those are maybe slightly misguided. But we, you know, we just, we'd like to have conversations about what's happening and how we can just better engage with the culture we're in.

Eli Price (03:41.366)
Yes.

Eli Price (03:54.324)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I think, I think sometimes Christians and, uh, in culture get a bad rep for kind of, uh, being not engaging well with, uh, with the rest of the culture, whether it be pop culture or otherwise. So it's, uh, it's good to have some, uh, some people out there doing the hard work of trying to build those bridges back. Um, yeah.

Sam (04:19.358)
Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of fun. So.

Eli Price (04:22.52)
Yeah. And it is fun. I listened to the first episode by the time this comes out, there's there. There'll probably be a good, good handful of episodes, but the first episode was, was solid. Um, I didn't expect to hear my name on it, but you did, uh, mention a recommendation I had given you for another podcast, so we're, uh, throwing podcasts all around.

Sam (04:31.647)
Yeah.

Sam (04:38.483)
Yeah.

Sam (04:43.718)
Yeah, yeah, always happy to always happy to spread the love. So it was a good recommendation. So that's the team Deacon's podcast. If you want sort of the behind the curtain, look at how movies get made and that kind of stuff. It's, it's a great podcast.

Eli Price (04:49.624)
Hehehe

Eli Price (04:54.084)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:59.916)
Oh yeah. Yeah, I'm doing older stuff. So I haven't really, I need to start kind of researching and seeing if there's some of these guys that were doing visual effects and editing and stuff for Spielberg that have been on there. I haven't really looked.

Sam (05:17.022)
Yeah, I don't know, but I would imagine there are probably some, because there's not a ton of these guys who did a lot of the visual effects. I feel like quite a few of them have probably passed. Just from ILM and all those guys who just did...

Eli Price (05:21.773)
Yeah.

Eli Price (05:34.056)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's probably true.

Sam (05:43.738)
incredible stuff, you know, with Star Wars and Jurassic Park and I'm sure this I'm sure they were involved in this Close Encounters of the Third Kind as well. So

Eli Price (05:45.092)
Yeah.

Eli Price (05:49.284)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (05:56.204)
Yeah, I bet some of the, there was crossover. I think, I can't remember. I see, I know one of the guys in the, like the making of doc was talking about, I think he worked on star Wars. He wasn't like a main, like visual effects supervisor or whatever, you know, a director or whatever. Um, but he was, um, kind of there. I think there was some crossover for sure.

Sam (06:16.965)
Yeah.

Sam (06:24.514)
Because did this come out before Star Wars? After, okay.

Eli Price (06:27.228)
after. This came out in November of 77. I think Star Wars was a summer release. Yeah. Same year. Yeah. Which is wild. Yeah. So let's use that to transition into some close encounters of the third time talk. I remember in my

Sam (06:35.054)
Okay, yeah, I mean so but same year. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah.

Eli Price (06:56.088)
kind of overview episode on Spielberg. I mentioned this anecdote of Spielberg when he was, I want to say he was probably like in the eight or nine range in age and his dad like woke him up, threw him in his, in his car and just started driving and he didn't know what was going on and they got to this field and there were a bunch of other people there on picnic blankets, looking at the sky.

and his dad had taken him out to see a meteor shower. Yeah, and so he, in one of the making of Doc's Spielberg said that this was his first intro into a world beyond the earth, is kind of how he put it. Just kind of one of those moments, I guess, that sticks in your mind as a memory of both family and just like...

Sam (07:28.956)
Oh, cool.

Sam (07:43.03)
Hmm.

Eli Price (07:53.976)
kind of wonder at the world, which is always cool. And yeah, when I was thinking about that, I started thinking about like, oh, it's just like, in the film at one point, you know, Roy like is waking up his family and he's like, y'all gotta come, come see this. And he's piling them in the truck and driving them out to see the UFOs. Yeah, and I don't think, I think in that scene, they don't see anything.

Sam (07:55.603)
Yeah.

Sam (08:11.445)
Yeah.

Sam (08:17.735)
Yeah, in the middle of the night.

Eli Price (08:24.088)
the helicopters show up or something.

Sam (08:26.05)
Yeah, they just go back to where he saw it, but there was nothing there.

Eli Price (08:29.228)
Right. Yeah, but yeah, so that was kind of like, I guess, if you could say that was the beginning for Close Encounters. And yeah, he actually made kind of a sci-fi horror kind of movie when he was 16 called Firelight, which I think I mentioned in that overview episode as well.

Sam (08:40.62)
Yeah.

Sam (08:55.829)
Okay.

Eli Price (08:59.404)
showed it at a little theater in, um, and I think in Phoenix, Arizona is where he was at the time. And, um, yeah, I had like 500 people show up to watch his, his movie and, um, and he kind of, uh, I think in hindsight, he says it's like one of the worst films ever made. Um, as we probably all would feel about something we made when we were 16. Uh,

Sam (09:06.919)
Okay.

Sam (09:14.327)
That's well.

Sam (09:26.79)
Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (09:29.696)
But it was definitely a precursor for this. You can't watch the movie anywhere, but you can see a couple minutes worth of clips from it on YouTube. And it even has some glowing light moving around kind of stuff. So it's definitely a precursor to this.

Sam (09:41.57)
Hmm.

Sam (09:48.18)
Yeah.

Sam (09:52.754)
Yeah, yeah, there's a great documentary, I'm sure you've mentioned it. It's just called Spielberg on HBO Max that I watched a few months ago. But you definitely see a lot of, of his sort of personal experiences, I feel like are making their way onto screen. Uh, definitely with, with this film.

Eli Price (09:58.448)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (10:13.424)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (10:16.96)
Oh yeah, it does feel like a very personal film. Like a lot of his films feel very like emotionally involved, like he's emotionally involved with them, but this has, this kind of feels like extra personal in a way. But yeah, moving up to like the movie, it really was kind of born out of

Sam (10:33.896)
Yeah.

Eli Price (10:46.048)
Spielberg's interest in both like the UFO craze of the 70s, which was apparently a thing. I wasn't alive So I don't know anything about that But but I think I want to say even he was born I Think he was even born which he you know, that would have been in the late later 40s Just like months before or after the whole like Roswell, New Mexico

Sam (10:53.886)
Yeah, that was before me as well. So I missed that one.

Eli Price (11:15.184)
kind of UFO thing that happened back then. 40s, yeah, later 40s. And so he was born right around then, and then apparently there was like a big thing in the 70s, which there's a lot of drugs in the 70s, so kind of... kind of...

Sam (11:16.806)
Oh yeah, because that was in that would have been in the 50s or late 40s. Okay, yeah. Yeah.

Sam (11:32.291)
Hmm.

Sam (11:37.03)
Yeah, well a lot of drugs and disenchantment with institutions, which I guess, you know, history repeats itself. But we digress.

Eli Price (11:42.236)
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So it's, it's funny though, cause Spielberg like notoriously does not drink or do drugs. Like he's, it's kind of like, that's, I guess, like, uh, not necessarily commonly known, I guess, but you don't have to do like a whole lot of reading on Spielberg to be like, Oh, he's kind of a more of a T total or kind of guy.

Sam (12:12.117)
Yeah.

Eli Price (12:12.148)
Um, he's, um, as, as some might say, hi on life. Uh, but yeah, so you have that. You also have the Watergate scandal, um, kind of like influencing you. You can see a little bit of that in the movie with the political stuff going on and covering stuff up and. Mm. Yeah. Um, but I did love this heat. So.

Sam (12:29.874)
Yeah, yeah, government lying to its population about what's really happening.

Eli Price (12:42.452)
even without the drugs, Spielberg was kind of, he kind of bought into the whole UFO crazy. He kind of was like, you know, I think there really might be something out there. And so he actually called the film not science fiction, but science speculation, which I thought was fun. And it really like too ends up, like if you, once you,

Sam (13:01.235)
Yeah.

Eli Price (13:11.236)
go through the whole film and you end up where you end up, obviously, it not being massive destruction happening, you end up with kind of like a switch up on the Cold War paranoia films that he kind of was growing up with, especially like the 60s and earlier in the 70s. This is a much more optimistic.

Sam (13:26.85)
Hmm.

Sam (13:30.944)
Yeah.

Eli Price (13:40.768)
film as far as that goes, which I appreciate. Yeah, he started walking on this even before Jaws. Couldn't get anyone interested. And then he even had met with this guy named Dr. Alan Heineck. And he was a UFO kind of expert. He had a book on it.

Sam (13:41.504)
Right.

Eli Price (14:08.904)
And, uh, I want to say Spielberg was kind of saying like Heineck wasn't necessarily a, like a believer in UFOs, but he, he would always like, he would point out all the things we can't explain. Um, he was very like realistic about here's the things we can't explain. Here's the things like we, we don't have explanations for. Um, and, um, but that's where the title of the film comes from is his book.

Sam (14:24.056)
Hmm.

Sam (14:32.501)
Yeah.

Eli Price (14:38.568)
Um, I don't know the name of the book, but you can probably find it pretty easy. Uh, but in the book, he talks about three different kinds of encounters. And so there's the first kind, which is like, um, I can't remember what the first kind is actually. Um, I know the second kind is, uh, like there's some sort of material evidence, whether it be, you know, um,

Sam (14:42.539)
Yeah.

Eli Price (15:07.284)
imprints left in your cornfield or some sort of sound or light that you see. And then there's the third kind, which is where you actually meet the alien. And so come into contact with it. And so yeah, that's...

Sam (15:09.489)
Right.

Sam (15:22.816)
Okay.

Sam (15:27.642)
Yeah, have you have you read any of Diane Pasolka's work? Do you know who that is? Yeah, I can't remember. The name of her book. Well, I can text it to you later and you can put in the show notes, but she wrote a book and she like her. I think PhD is in.

Eli Price (15:31.58)
No, I don't. I'm interested, though.

Sam (15:52.186)
is in religion, but like religious experiences. And then she wrote a book about like sort of these alien encounters, that kind of stuff, but from a religious perspective. And it's really, really fascinating. So I would highly recommend it. Yeah.

Eli Price (15:55.705)
Mmm.

Eli Price (16:09.564)
really cool. Yeah, yeah, I've read some stuff like from that perspective in the past. It's really interesting. But um, yeah, it's this high neck guy.

Sam (16:15.347)
Yeah.

Sam (16:20.478)
But it sounds like, yeah, Heineck is sort of that kind of a person. He's not like, he's not a true believer, but maybe skeptic, but just trying to come at it from a practical perspective.

Eli Price (16:23.704)
Yeah, exactly.

Eli Price (16:30.58)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Maybe like hesitant, but open kind of kind of perspective. He actually is in the movie at one point at the end. He's one of the like when the cameras kind of go into all the different people, like kind of staring as the mothership goes away. He's like one of those people that it kind of. Close up on. Which is, you know, it's always fun.

Sam (16:37.43)
Yeah.

Sam (16:50.05)
Hmm.

Okay.

Eli Price (16:59.332)
fun little Easter eggs, that sort of thing. But yeah, Julia Phillips, who is a producer, her and her husband, Michael, the way I read it, it was especially her that really wanted to green light this movie and was having trouble getting anyone to buy into it. But the thing that I noticed that her, Julia and Michael Phillips produced,

Sam (17:01.599)
Yeah.

Eli Price (17:27.384)
that was the most recognizable to me was Taxi Driver. And so they, they produced that movie. But yeah, Columbia did end up picking up the movie. And it's largely because a guy named Bagelman that was Spielberg's agent, he used to be his agent, became like an executive or, or head of the studio or something like that and at Columbia. So got it greenlit.

Sam (17:32.552)
Okay.

Sam (17:36.27)
Thanks for watching!

Sam (17:53.398)
Hmm.

Eli Price (17:57.976)
And yeah, it went through a lot of phases as far as the script goes. Early on in the process, the Phillips producers kind of connected him with Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver. And he's done some directing more recently, movies like First Reformed and

Yeah, he had one come out last year, the year before the card counter, I think. And I think there's one called Master Gardener that was like maybe last year. Um, yeah. And he might have more than those. Those are the ones that I know of. Um, I've only seen first reformed of those. Um, but, uh, but yeah, he's, he's a really like well-respected writer. Um,

Sam (18:34.769)
Oh yeah.

Sam (18:40.006)
Yeah, I feel like that sounds familiar.

Eli Price (18:57.332)
So they had worked with him on taxi driver and connected him and, um, Paul Schrader is like, uh, is, has a very religious background. He, he kind of did. Um, I think he even did some, he was at one point planning to be a minister. Um, before he kind of got out of that and has some like very strong Calvinist, uh, like influences that he like struggled through.

Sam (19:15.032)
Hmm.

Eli Price (19:26.376)
Um, and so, and he's still kind of like struggles through his religious background and his writing. Like that's one of the things he's kind of known for is very heavily religious wrestling with his, with his kind of narratives. Um, yeah, the, an early script that he wrote, he had titled kingdom come. And it's kind of this, uh, the story, I think there's a book, um, or

Sam (19:39.691)
Interesting.

Eli Price (19:55.392)
an interview with Schrader about all this. Um, uh, if I can find it, I'll put it in the show notes. Uh, but yeah, he, he kind of, it's kind of this character that was a debunker and becomes a believer kind of like a St. Paul story is the way he described it. And, um, but him and Spielberg just really like, didn't see eye to eye on it. Um, he's, he's a much more brooding and.

Sam (20:11.082)
Yeah.

Sam (20:19.591)
Yeah.

Eli Price (20:24.848)
Uh, he's not the idealist that Spielberg is. He's probably like, he might be the opposite of whatever the opposite of idealist is. Um, it's straight. If you, yeah, if you've seen taxi driver, then you can like, you can see.

Sam (20:35.508)
A cynic maybe?

Sam (20:41.886)
Yeah, I don't know if I've, I don't, I can't remember if I've seen that one before or not.

Eli Price (20:45.3)
Yeah, it's definitely the opposite of idealist. But yeah, they just disagreed on, you know, actually the way Schrader put it was, he had said to Steven, like, I just don't think Roy should be the kind of guy that would go into space and start a McDonald's franchise. And Spielberg was kind of like, no, that's exactly who he's supposed to be.

Sam (20:51.501)
Yeah.

Eli Price (21:14.968)
Like who he might be, like he's just an ordinary guy sort of is, it's kind of Spielberg's M.O. putting ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. And so they just couldn't get on, on the same page. And so really like very little of that script was left, but I think there's really strong traces of that kind of spiritual quest still in the movie.

Sam (21:16.547)
Yeah.

Sam (21:22.146)
Yeah.

Sam (21:26.472)
Right, right.

Sam (21:43.24)
Oh, for sure.

Eli Price (21:44.564)
And so we'll get into that later. Kind of maybe the traces of what Schrader left behind. But he did end up claiming sole writing credit on the movie. There was a lot of other people that kind of contributed. And I think if you go, like on Letterboxd, if you go to the crew list, it actually lists some of these guys as writers.

Sam (21:51.979)
Yeah.

Eli Price (22:12.832)
now, but like in the credits on the movie, it just says, you know, Steven Spielberg. Um, but yeah, that, uh, Barwood and Robbins who worked on him with Sugarland Express, um, they kind of helped with some of the story. Um, he had these guys, uh, David Guiler and Jerry Belson kind of help, uh, inject some humor into the movie. Um, which there is, there is like some, I feel like some

Sam (22:17.795)
Hmm.

Eli Price (22:41.348)
funny circumstances at least. Um, maybe not like outright jokes being told, but definitely like some funny one-liners and, um, and like funny circumstances. So maybe that's from those guys. I don't know. Um, I'm not sure how funny Steven Spielberg is. I don't, I haven't watched 1941 yet. Um, but I'll be watching that soon and it's supposed to be like a world war two comedy.

Sam (22:44.959)
Yeah.

Sam (22:57.995)
Yeah.

Sam (23:02.635)
Yeah. I think he's a

Eli Price (23:11.076)
So I guess I'll see.

Sam (23:13.034)
Yeah, I just don't picture Spielberg doing a comedy. I feel like that would be interesting.

Eli Price (23:16.352)
Yeah. When I watch it, I'll, uh, I'll shoot you a text and let you know if it's, it's apparently it's one of his least liked movies, but, um, but who knows? Maybe it'll surprise me. Um, and then he had some, he, there's some other influences that, that people have talked about that wouldn't really be considered like, Oh, they should get credit for writing.

Sam (23:22.59)
Yeah, let me know if it's worth watching.

Sam (23:28.77)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (23:44.228)
but just kind of like one of those things where, oh, this person had this idea and I used it kind of things. But yeah, let's talk about the cast because I think the cast is really interesting. Spielberg did talk about the cast as being like very naturalistic in their performances. Everyone was kind of playing a version of themselves, which I think comes across on screen for the most part.

Sam (23:50.432)
Yeah.

Eli Price (24:12.888)
Uh, nobody seems to be like playing these wild characters. Um, uh, I guess you, the wildest it gets is just Roy kind of going insane. Um, but when you watch interviews with Richard Dreyfus on these making of documentaries, you're like, I can see this guy going off the deep end. Um, so.

Sam (24:17.943)
Yeah.

Sam (24:24.723)
Yeah.

Sam (24:34.806)
Yeah, well, I think one of his best performances was in What About Bob? I don't know if you ever saw that. Yeah, I think that sort of drive is at his best. And it's also Bill Murray, you know, at the top of his game. And yeah, he kind of loses it as a psychologist in that movie.

Eli Price (24:40.856)
I haven't seen that yet.

Eli Price (24:46.645)
Okay, I'll have to...

Yeah, right, right.

Yeah.

Sam (25:02.746)
one of the best movies ever. So yeah, my family and I, we quoted all the time to each other. So it's one of those kinds.

Eli Price (25:05.365)
I'll definitely have to check it out then.

Eli Price (25:10.544)
That's great. Yeah, a good quotable movie is always fun. I'm not sure how quotable Close Encounters is, but yeah, maybe the most quotable thing is the five notes and the, dun, dun. It's like it's ingrained in your head.

Sam (25:16.009)
Yeah.

Sam (25:22.082)
Yeah.

Sam (25:28.46)
Yeah.

Sam (25:34.279)
Yeah, it's a pretty good hook.

Eli Price (25:36.576)
Oh yeah. Especially after watching the movie and then watching like all of the making of stuff that is on like the special edition, you just hear it over and over. Um, yeah, going back to Richard Dreyfuss, um, Spielberg, um, actually told him about the movie while they were making Jaws and, um, so Dreyfuss kind of like.

Sam (25:45.823)
Oh yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (26:05.244)
always wanted to play Roy and, uh, and Spielberg just like, wasn't catching on to that, I guess, that he wanted, or maybe just like, wasn't sure that he wanted him to play it or something. And so, um, Dreyfus even talks about like, he started like bad mouthing other actors and stuff, uh, in front of Spielberg to kind of, uh, maybe, uh, downplay them and build himself up. But, um, yeah.

Sam (26:17.461)
Yeah.

Sam (26:31.734)
That's interesting.

Eli Price (26:33.584)
Spielberg's first choice was actually Steve McQueen, which it would have, yeah.

Sam (26:37.794)
which that would have just been in a completely different movie.

Sam (26:43.362)
Which is, you know, you don't know how much of that is just because it wasn't. And so it's hard to imagine what that would be.

Eli Price (26:47.572)
Right. Yeah, maybe he would have maybe he would have played it very similar. I don't know.

Sam (26:53.516)
I think it would have been a very different movie for sure.

Eli Price (26:55.896)
Yeah, it's hard to see Steve McQueen not be like really charming. Um, and like charisma, like Roy Dreyfus doesn't have charisma as Roy really.

Sam (27:02.68)
Yeah.

Yeah, but I think he could... Right. But McQueen, I think he could, he could kind of, I feel like he would be good at going off the rails, you know, um, but yeah, that would, that would seem odd to me in hindsight, but yeah.

Eli Price (27:16.577)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (27:22.484)
Yeah, the anecdote that Spielberg tells is that he actually met McQueen in a bar. McQueen was like, hey, meet me at this bar. He did try to drink a little to kind of be polite. He was like, I don't know how much I can drink because I never drink. But yeah, so they hang out for a while. Then finally McQueen's like...

Sam (27:45.325)
Yeah.

Eli Price (27:51.)
I just don't think I can do this role. And so I was like, Oh, I really think you, you know, you'd be great. And McQueen, the reason McQueen gave us cause, um, he, there's a point in the script where it says that Roy cries and McQueen's like, I've just never been able to cry on camera. Um, it's just a skill that I don't have. And spill words like, Oh, we'll, we'll take it out. We'll take it out. And McQueen's like, no, you can't take it out. He's like, I actually got.

Sam (28:10.434)
Hmm. That's so funny.

Eli Price (28:20.428)
emotional like reading that part of the script. So you can't take it out. Which you've got to, I guess you've got to respect that. I guess it's an artist to another artist kind of, you know, game recognized game. Like, no, this is good. Keep it like it is. It's just not for me kind of thing. But yeah, he talked to Dennis Hoffman, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman, Jack Nicholson.

Sam (28:24.898)
Yeah.

Sam (28:28.771)
Yeah, for sure.

Sam (28:40.821)
Yeah.

Eli Price (28:50.76)
actually was interested. Um, he definitely can go off the rails. Um, uh, and, but he was working on another projects that he couldn't get out of. Um, and so Dreyfus, um, I think Dreyfus said at one point he was like, here's, here's the problem with all these other guys. You need a guy that's a child. Like you need a child as an adult form to play this part.

Sam (28:56.98)
Yeah, if you want crazy, yeah.

Eli Price (29:19.6)
Spillworks like, all right, you've got the role. And yeah, the rest is history. Roy Neary becomes Richard Dreyfuss. The other ones, we'll skip over Truffaut and come back to him. But Terry Gahr, who plays Roy's wife.

Sam (29:31.103)
Yeah.

Eli Price (29:46.456)
Spielberg actually saw her in a coffee commercial, which is funny because she had been in like The Sting and Young Frankenstein, but he was like, oh, I want this woman that's in this coffee commercial. And then you have Melinda Dillon, who plays the single mom of the little boy, Jillian Giler. She was actually suggested by Hal Ashby.

Sam (29:54.616)
Hmm.

Sam (30:00.407)
That's funny.

Eli Price (30:15.28)
Um, from a movie of his that she was in and, um, she actually got cast like less than 48 hours before they started shooting. Um, it was like down to the wire and, um, Spielberg liked her. And so he, he hired her. Um,

Sam (30:24.032)
Oh wow.

Sam (30:32.002)
That's incredible that it was 48 hours before filming.

Eli Price (30:35.765)
Yeah. And they, I think they started, they actually filmed some stuff like, uh, out in Wyoming at the devil's tower, I think is where they started because it was, it wasn't a ton of stuff they had to get. Um, and, and so they went ahead and, and knocked that out, I think. And so, yeah, she was like, which, you know, she's all in that section. And so it was like, right. You know, you're, you're hired and then.

Sam (30:53.027)
Hmm.

Eli Price (31:03.172)
flying you out and starting shooting. Um, but yeah, and then, uh, Bob Balaban, you'll appreciate this. Um, I think you, your Duolingo was trying to get you to do something before we started recording, uh, to learn French and Bob Balaban actually lied, um, on his, in his interview about speaking French. Um, he like said some, it was some phrase that he said in the interview.

Sam (31:05.549)
Yeah.

Sam (31:18.277)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (31:30.788)
that basically was something to the effect of like, I don't speak very much French actually, like don't speak really any at all, but he could say that in French. And they're like, oh wow, okay. Yeah. And yeah, he figured it out. He said he had learned some French back in the day. And so he had to just like dive in and really learn a bunch of stuff. Yeah, really funny.

Sam (31:41.685)
Hmm. Well, that sounds great. You're hired.

Sam (31:56.023)
Yeah.

Eli Price (32:00.292)
Kerry Guffey plays the kid, Barry, four-year-old kid. He was discovered, I think the casting director's niece was in his pre-K class, and she saw this kid and was like, oh, this kid would be great. And yeah, it was like between him and another kid when it came down to hiring. And I guess it was like, it seemed like the other kid was a lot more like.

a kind of in control kid, like I'm going to do what I want kind of kid. Um, but like not in an unlikable way, but I guess just, just not right. And so they went with, with Carrie and, um, it's, it's fun. Cause in the making of documentary, he's in there like as a, I don't know how old he is, he's a man in it, uh, just talking about his memories. Um, and so that's, that's fun to.

Sam (32:35.278)
Hmm.

Sam (32:40.854)
Just not right for the part.

Sam (32:56.696)
Hmm.

Eli Price (32:59.625)
I bet that was fun for him to kind of reminisce on all that.

Sam (33:03.182)
Well, yeah, you wonder how much he remembers, but that would be wild as a four-year-old to be in a big movie.

Eli Price (33:07.588)
Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, he, he talks about like some of his first, like strong memories are of working on that. Um, working on the set and stuff. Um, Oh yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. He, he, he had that like curiousness on his face. That was great. And, um, Spielberg apparently is like really great with kids too. And, and connected with them. Mm hmm.

Sam (33:17.864)
Yeah.

Yeah, he did a great job. Like, I feel like he really sold it.

Sam (33:30.879)
Yeah.

Sam (33:34.794)
Well, he works a lot with kids. Like, I feel like that's a recurring motif in a lot of his films.

Eli Price (33:40.684)
Yeah.

Eli Price (33:43.872)
Yeah, the, the only, really the only other notable people, um, Jay Patrick McNamara, which I recognized, I didn't recognize his name, but I did recognize his face. Um, he's like a side character. Carl Weathers is, is a side character. He's like a, he's like at that, uh, air traffic control kind of section. Um, I was like, wait, that's Carl Weathers. Uh,

Sam (34:09.599)
Hmm.

Sam (34:13.459)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (34:14.928)
And, uh, and then, um, Justin Dreyfus, who is, um, Richard Dreyfus's nephew plays one of his sons. Um, so that's kind of a fun, fun fact. Uh, but Truffaut, um, French, uh, Francois Truffaut plays Claude Lacombe, who is, you know, the French. I guess he's a scientist. I don't feel like they do a good job explaining exactly why he's so important. Um,

Sam (34:23.187)
Okay.

Huh.

Sam (34:39.376)
Yeah.

Sam (34:43.146)
Yeah, he's like a archaeologist scientist guy, expert in a vague field. Yeah.

Eli Price (34:46.957)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's it is very vague, but it does seem like he knows what he's talking about. So just roll with it.

Sam (34:57.024)
Yes, it's the French, I think. It's just sort of like, oh, he seems important.

Eli Price (35:03.628)
But yeah, so obviously, do you know much about Trufo?

Sam (35:09.578)
I feel like I've seen some of it. He was a director, right? And he's did he do the? What are some of his films?

Eli Price (35:12.041)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (35:17.984)
Uh, probably the most, most popular one is the 400 blows, which was his first film. Um, yeah. Uh, and that's the only one I've seen of his too, but he, he has some other pretty fairly well known ones too. Um, yeah, I think he was actually just coming off of a recent win earlier in the 70s of like best international feature at the Oscars. I can't remember for what movie though.

Sam (35:21.91)
Okay, that's what I was thinking of. Yeah, I've seen that one.

Sam (35:33.783)
Yeah.

Sam (35:42.998)
Hmm.

Eli Price (35:46.324)
Um, day for night, I think actually, which I haven't seen. Um, but yeah, he, so he actually was started as a film critic. Um, and, um,

Sam (35:48.752)
Okay.

Sam (35:57.098)
Right, because he was like sort of a bit in a French new wave cinema. He was kind of in with all that.

Eli Price (36:04.004)
Mm-hmm. Well, he, he kind of started the French new wave. Um, so there was at the time he was a film critic. He like, actually, I think it was, I don't know if it was can film festival or another big French film festival. They actually like banned him from coming because he would just like rip all the movies and be like, these are all the same. No one's doing anything interesting. Um,

Sam (36:09.704)
Right.

Eli Price (36:32.884)
And so it's just like banned him from coming. And, um, and I think this, the, the story is kind of like, all these people are kind of sick and tired of him, like ripping all the movies and they're like, if you think, you know, so much about making movies, why don't you make a movie? And then he makes the 400 blows and kicks off the French new wave. And so he kind of like proved all of them, all of them wrong. Like, no, I do know what I'm talking about. So.

Sam (36:33.419)
Yeah.

Sam (36:53.699)
Yeah.

Sam (37:00.587)
Yeah. Well, it's just interesting because I don't know that there's that many like directors that act in other people's films. I mean, there's a lot of people I guess now who are like actor directors but I don't know, I guess I think of that time. Right, and then they direct and then maybe they still act in other people's films but it seems unusual.

Eli Price (37:07.344)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (37:14.116)
Right.

Eli Price (37:17.804)
A lot of them start as actors though.

Eli Price (37:24.164)
right.

Sam (37:27.146)
Maybe it's not, but it seems unusual that it'd be like, if you're primarily a director, but then you, you know, moonlight as an actor for, you know, somebody else's film. Yeah, I just thought that was interesting.

Eli Price (37:38.177)
Spielberg.

Eli Price (37:42.156)
Yeah, I don't think he did it a whole lot. Um, Spielberg actually wanted him from his role in a movie called the wild child, which I don't think is his movie. I could be wrong. Um, so if, if you're listening and you're like, no, you're wrong, just email me. And tell me, um, but, uh, but yeah, so he, he kind of liked, liked the really like pure humanity presence that he kind of brings and I think true fo.

Sam (37:59.615)
Yeah.

Eli Price (38:12.088)
I don't think I know he acts in some of his own films too. And so, but I think at this time he was kind of, he had a film coming up and, but he had enough time to come film this. And he was like a big fan of dual, which did a theatrical run in Europe. And yeah, a lot of, a lot of European.

Sam (38:28.524)
Hmm.

Sam (38:35.221)
Cool.

Eli Price (38:40.684)
like critics and filmmakers really like enjoy, like really loved to duel. And so that, I think that kind of boosted Spielberg's like respect in Europe. But yeah, so Truffaut, he sent him the script. He was actually like asked a ton of other French like actors or something first that I didn't recognize because he didn't think Truffaut would do it. And so.

Sam (38:52.394)
Hmm. That's interesting.

Eli Price (39:09.956)
Finally, he was like, I guess I'll send it to him because he wasn't getting any of these other guys. And Truffaut, I think the response Truffaut gave was, hey, can you go ahead and send someone to talk to me about my wardrobe? Which was, I guess, his way of saying yes. But he was also working on a project where he, I think he was wanting to write something on acting.

Sam (39:15.458)
Hmm.

Sam (39:29.098)
Yeah.

Eli Price (39:37.676)
And so I guess this was another way for him to kind of, um, do some research on acting too, but yeah, he, he really like, everyone loved him. Uh, like everyone just talked about him as just like really awesome presence, um, on set and, um, he even like start kicked it off by like assuring Spielberg like, Hey, I'm hearing as an actor. I'm not.

I'm not going to be doing any directing. You know, I'm here to do what you, what you need me to do. Just a really cool guy. It seems like, um, he, and, uh, the, one of the cool little like anecdotes that came out of him being in a different sort of, well, I mean, he's, he was self conscious about his speaking English. Uh, and so he, he was nervous about that. Um, still took the role though. So, uh, but he.

Sam (40:08.287)
Yeah.

Sam (40:14.368)
Yeah.

Eli Price (40:34.488)
There was this story, I think it was Bob Balaban was telling it in the documentary. And he was like, Truffaut was like, he had this line in the script at the, you know, in the, that last kind of section where he's supposed to say like, you know, Einstein was right, which that line is still in the movie.

But he didn't like the line. And he was like, I don't know if I can pull this line off. I don't know if I like the line. I don't know if I can do it. And he was super just conflicted about it. And so he's that way for a couple of weeks, leading up to when they're going to shoot that stuff. And then it comes time to shoot it. And Spielberg's like, oh, Francois, there's this line.

Sam (41:13.729)
Yeah.

Eli Price (41:28.992)
I actually don't want you to say that line. I'm going to get this random guy over here to say that I think that'll work better than you saying it. And, uh, and then he kind of, ballad band says that, uh, Truffaut was telling him like how he really understood actors, uh, actors now, cause he kind of like. Felt like in that moment, he was like, what you're giving my line away to someone else, like this line that he didn't even want to say he all of a sudden, like felt.

Sam (41:53.014)
Yeah. But he...

Eli Price (41:58.472)
felt like wronged because the director was like taking his line away. So I thought that was a fun. Yeah, I thought that was a fun anecdote. Um, yeah, did you did you recognize any of the crew? Obviously, John Williams. This is one of the names that like it's kind of one of those that should be known, but it probably isn't.

Sam (42:04.306)
Yeah, that he worried about for weeks. Yeah.

Eli Price (42:28.272)
Is, uh, Michael con, um, he, this was his first time editing with school work and, uh, he actually is edited like all of his movies since close encounters, except for ET and the fabled men's, um, so that's a lot of movies. Yeah. So that's, that's a name that should be, you know,

Sam (42:41.275)
Oh really?

Sam (42:50.123)
Yeah, that's pretty incredible.

Eli Price (42:57.016)
should be attached to Spielberg. Spielberg, John Williams, Michael Kahn, your editor is a really important part of your team. I mean, really, if there's bad editing, then everything can really fall apart.

Sam (43:02.515)
Yeah.

Sam (43:16.618)
Yeah, I mean, I feel like aside from maybe the director and the DP, you know, I mean, that's where that's where the, the vision comes together is in the edit. And so I feel like. Yeah.

Eli Price (43:21.284)
Riot.

Eli Price (43:26.936)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think editing is kind of misunderstood too. It's not just like piecing things together. There's a, there's a strong, like narrative effort going on with, with editing. Um, and narrative and like, even like thematic, like the way you edit can affect the way you see certain things or the way you see certain characters. Um,

Sam (43:40.286)
Yeah.

Sam (43:54.279)
Yeah.

Eli Price (43:55.536)
And so yeah, it's an important part of filmmaking that I think should get more respect. Yeah, like the common kind of, I feel like the common movie watcher, they're like, they know directors and like even sometimes like they know like cinematographers like a Roger Deacon or, you know, Hoytavn Hoytema. That just one.

Sam (44:04.798)
Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Sam (44:24.532)
Yeah.

Eli Price (44:25.708)
for Oppenheimer. But not many people know editors. And I feel like we need to get the editors pumped up. So we're starting here on the establishing shot, celebrating editors. Yeah, Joe Alves is back with him from Jaws. He was the production designer for him there, too. And then Vilmos Zygmunt.

Sam (44:27.328)
Yeah.

Sam (44:39.391)
Absolutely.

Eli Price (44:54.5)
Uh, was his, uh, cinematographer, uh, DP. Um, and he, I think he does more work with Spielberg if I'm not mistaken. Um, but, uh, but yeah, he, and then he's the only one that ended up with an Oscar for this, cause, um, it won for, for cinematography. Um, so yeah.

Sam (45:16.09)
Hmm.

Eli Price (45:19.244)
And then the only other notable name is Carlo Rambaldi, who does some visual effects work. He's, I guess, most noticeable with the alien at the very end. That's doing the hand signals back to Truffaut's character. And he ends up doing the puppeteering for ET. And so he kind of is important in

Sam (45:39.064)
Yeah.

Eli Price (45:47.616)
in the future of Spielberg's career too. But yeah, that's, you know, the, I don't know, it's a fun casting crew, I feel like, in this movie. But as far as production goes, the production lasted from May 76 to February of 77, so a pretty long production.

Sam (46:00.096)
Yeah.

Eli Price (46:13.696)
And actually it was a pretty long post-production too. I think it was like nine months of post-production and, um, and it would have been longer if Columbia pictures wasn't, um, on the brink of bankruptcy, uh, cause Spielberg wanted more time, but they wouldn't give them more time. Um, yeah, we've got to have something out in theaters. Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean.

Sam (46:33.416)
I think we need a hit.

Sam (46:39.68)
Yeah.

Eli Price (46:43.456)
We might be jumping the gun here, but like really this movie ends up kind of saving Columbia pictures Yeah so Yeah, I guess they they're glad that I guess they're happy that Spielberg's ex-agent took over and You know gave him gave him the green light for this one

Sam (46:50.624)
Really?

Sam (47:08.7)
Yeah.

Eli Price (47:10.304)
Yeah, I think one fun thing, this is a guy that wasn't listed in the crew members, which I found surprising because it seemed like he did have do a decent amount of work on the film is a guy named Douglas Trumbull. And Trumbull is most popular for his visual effects work on 2001, a space

Sam (47:36.066)
Hmm.

Eli Price (47:39.592)
actually said like 2001 was less of an inspiration and more of like an intimidation for him because he felt like he had a lot to live up to with that. But yeah, he did pull on Doug Trumbull and maybe Trumbull was less involved than I thought, but I got the impression from the making of that he was pretty involved. So when I was looking at like the crew list on

letterbox. I was like, it's weird that Trumbull's name is not anywhere on here. Um, but yeah, he, um, he is the one. So they were toying around with some like very, very early CGI. Um, and, uh, Trumbull, it, it wasn't really looking like it was going to work. And so Trumbull comes on and he's like, Hey, let's just go all practical. Um, but there's also a new technology that.

Sam (48:13.826)
Hmm.

Eli Price (48:38.968)
Um, he kind of introduced to them, um, it's something called, um, motion control. Um, and this was like a very, very early movie that used motion and control for the special effects. So basically, um, I don't, I don't know if, I mean, you do some, some like filming and stuff, so you might be more familiar with this than, than I was. Um, but back.

Sam (48:45.188)
Hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (49:06.564)
Then it was basically they had this like attachment to the camera that was recording like on a tape the digital like recordings of the movements of the camera. And so like when they were like doing the camera movements and stuff, it was all like digitally recorded. And so they could take that tape. And then when they were going and doing the special effects work.

they knew the exact camera movements that they needed to match. And so when they ended up putting the shots for the original shots and the special effects shots together, the camera movements matched perfectly. And so.

Sam (49:38.323)
Yeah.

Sam (49:52.464)
Yeah, it's a way to just kind of get shot for shot and like it's a way to get match shots and you can do overlays sort of in camera in a way that like, yeah, like it's used a lot like in the early Star Wars and stuff like a lot of motion control.

Eli Price (49:59.258)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (50:07.616)
Right. Yeah. And so it was a, at that point it was a really new technology. And so it actually like took a lot of, uh, a lot of time to, to do all that. Um, I mean, today you don't really, you don't really have to do that. I guess necessarily today there's, there's like programs and stuff that'll probably do that for you. Um, but, um,

Sam (50:31.718)
Yeah, I don't know what really the equivalent would be today.

Eli Price (50:36.116)
Yeah, because it's all like it would just be CGI work mostly. Um, unless you're Nolan, then you're probably still using the old motion control technology. Um, it's refusing to do CGI work.

Sam (50:41.68)
Yeah.

Sam (50:47.562)
Yeah. Yeah, or just, we're just, yeah. Something like that.

Eli Price (50:54.944)
Yeah, I just thought that was a really cool kind of, just a really cool special effects fact. But yeah, Joe Alves, who was the production designer, did a tour trying to find the mountain that they were going to use and found Devil's Tower. Spielberg chose it right away. And Alves got to work on a set that they were going to use.

Sam (51:03.839)
Yeah.

Eli Price (51:22.608)
Because when Spielberg saw Devil's Tower, he was like, oh, it'd be really cool if we had this kind of base set up on top of the mountain to kind of like contact the aliens with or whatever. And so he builds that little thing, and Spielberg's like, yes, this is what we're going to do. He sees Alvis's model for it, and he's like, yes, this is what we're doing. And he kind of like starts.

I think he's, he said like the day they chose devil's tower, he like went back and like wrote that ending stuff. Um, and so it was kind of like a spitballed ending based on the like location choice and the, the design that how this was working on, uh, which is really cool. Um, just kind of like a good indication of like, Oh yeah. You know, films are very like collaborative.

Sam (52:01.55)
Hmm.

Sam (52:14.23)
Yeah.

Sam (52:21.734)
Yeah, well, I'd say they're the most collaborative artistic effort. Yeah, I mean, you could maybe make the argument that like music, um, certain types of music, but they're still right. It's still, it's still not as collaborative. I don't think because you have to have so much collaboration across so many disciplines.

Eli Price (52:21.889)
artistic effort.

Yeah.

I think so too.

Eli Price (52:37.236)
Yeah, but there's music in film, so. Right.

Sam (52:51.106)
in film that I think it is certainly the most collaborative.

Eli Price (52:56.02)
Yeah, there really probably isn't anything that comes close really. But yeah, they built this set at a disused Air Force base in Mobile, Alabama. It was this big warehouse or something that they, or hangar, I think. It's like a plane hangar that they found and they actually made it bigger. They built this structure around it to extend it because it wasn't

Sam (53:02.848)
Yeah.

Eli Price (53:25.26)
It wasn't pick enough for their set. Um, I think they spent like $700,000 on that one, like set. Um, cause they, they didn't just like build up that hanger. They also like had to rent a ton of like. Sciencey looking equipment, um, to kind of have running in all those, uh, those little trailers and pods and stuff, which actually like, I think turns out really well, like it, it's a very good design.

Sam (53:26.808)
Well...

Sam (53:43.786)
Yeah.

Sam (53:48.98)
Yeah.

Eli Price (53:54.788)
Like, in reality, none of that stuff is doing anything, but it looks like it is when you're watching the movie, so.

Sam (53:55.56)
Yeah.

Sam (54:01.202)
Yeah. Yeah, no, the set design, I think, was really good. Yeah.

Eli Price (54:06.232)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and even like, especially like the color board that they have that kind of does all the colors while he's playing the piano. Like, that's just like incredible design work to come up with that. And I think they have like a guy off camera controlling the colors as they were like doing the music. So that that's cool, too.

Sam (54:14.849)
Yeah.

Sam (54:18.677)
Yeah.

Yeah, that was cool.

Sam (54:30.827)
Yeah.

Eli Price (54:34.272)
Yeah. Uh, other, other kind of miscellaneous kind of special effects production stuff. Um, I'm going to like, uh, rapid fire through some of these, uh, cause they're, they're fun to know. Um, for the, the first encounter Roy has, um, where he's in his truck, they, they like put the truck on a gimbal and, um, and like started lifting it. And that's how you like get the effect of like.

All the stuff like falling out. Um, it gives like a kind of a zero gravity looking effect, but they're really just kind of like lifting the truck up on the gimbal, like simple, but like super effective. Um, and then, uh, they actually had to build the road for that UFO police chase. Uh, part really like that, that whole like little section where people keep meeting up.

Sam (55:11.958)
Yeah.

Sam (55:18.256)
Yeah.

Sam (55:31.265)
Oh, that bend in the road? Okay.

Eli Price (55:33.696)
Yeah, they built that, um, because they couldn't find anywhere where the lighting worked and so they, uh, they just built it and so they could get the lighting right for it. Um, yeah. Uh, another funny, like, um, little anecdote about true foe is, uh, Joe Alves, who's the production designer. They, um, you know, they had that huge set for that final sequence and you just like,

Sam (55:38.903)
Hmm.

Sam (55:44.466)
Of course.

Eli Price (56:01.964)
He was kind of itching for like true photo to be like, Oh, this is a great, you know, set. He just like, you know how like you, there's someone great and you feel like you've done something great. And you're like, I really want them to notice that I've done something awesome. And true foe, like never said a word about that, but, um, there's this one little thing that he had to build. It was this as the motel where Jillian is. Um,

Sam (56:12.595)
Yeah.

Eli Price (56:28.716)
where she kind of sees the devil's tower for the first time on the TV. Um, it's just, you know, it's just one little thing that he like threw together because they had to get this shot in the motel and true fo showed up on set that day and walked in, he was like, Oh, now this is a set. And it's just this, which makes sense. If you've like seen any true fo films, it's very like a French new wave is very like realism.

very much into realism. And so yeah, mundane down to earth stuff is what gets Truffaut going, not the big meet the aliens set. Yeah, on that big set, there's the part where the mothership kind of plays the loud note and the window busts out. Columbia didn't want to pay for all that.

Sam (56:58.29)
Yeah, very mundane.

Sam (57:08.046)
Spectacle. Yeah.

Eli Price (57:28.088)
have so many panes of sugar glass to kind of bust out. And Columbia didn't want to pay for all the extra glass for extra shots you might need. And so Spielberg negotiated and ended up paying for it himself because he really wanted it in the film. Yeah. And that's actually the second movie in a row where Spielberg uses money out of his own pocket to get a

Sam (57:47.958)
That's awesome.

Eli Price (57:57.092)
get something that he wants. Um, we talked to him in the jaws episode. He, he paid out of pocket to, um, to get that, uh, jump scare scene where the head pops out of the boat. Um, and, uh, yeah, he, they, they weren't going to give him more money to go shoot that. And he was like, okay, I'll, I'll pay for it. Um, yeah. Um, there were some painting guns for.

Sam (58:11.011)
Hmm.

Sam (58:18.283)
Yeah.

That's awesome.

Eli Price (58:26.52)
backgrounds. One of the, I think the most notable one to me is the, the background that like the Dillon house kind of out in the, that rural, rural sky background is a painted background, which I think is really beautiful. Yeah, the another thing, the screws coming up from the floor in the house when the aliens are coming. There's just like somebody under there.

Sam (58:41.506)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (58:56.076)
under the set unscrewed like turning the screw yeah oh yeah but yeah just a lot of fun miscellaneous production stuff the five notes had you so you said you watched this for the first time this past week right had you ever like heard the heard that before

Sam (58:59.704)
That's awesome. Hi, Turk.

Sam (59:10.174)
Yeah.

Sam (59:20.384)
Yeah.

Sam (59:24.746)
I don't think I have. I mean, if I did, I don't remember.

Eli Price (59:26.211)
Mm.

Yeah. I don't think I had maybe, yeah, at least in a memorable way, heard it before seeing the movie. Um, I think I watched this for the first time a few years ago. Um, but yeah, it's, um, once you hear it, it's like, man, that's an incredible, like very simple little tone that's memorable. And it's like, it's, it's like iconic. I'm sure it was like,

Sam (59:35.732)
Yeah.

Eli Price (59:58.68)
very iconic back around when this came out. And it's just five notes. And I think there was like back and forth with Spielberg and John Williams on what to do for that. Spielberg, I think ended up convincing Williams that it needed to be five notes. I think Williams had originally wanted like seven or eight, but Spielberg had the feeling that like,

Sam (01:00:03.583)
Yeah.

Sam (01:00:23.702)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:00:28.484)
Five notes was enough notes to like feel like it's saying something, but not enough notes to be like a full melody, um, which he didn't want. And, um, I think that was like a super smart choice. Um, because it does, it feels like a greeting of some sort or like, uh, yeah, it feels like something is being like communicated and it's not just like a song, you know,

Sam (01:00:37.055)
Yeah.

Sam (01:00:41.886)
Yeah, for sure. It's very effective.

Sam (01:00:56.57)
Yeah, yeah, like the beginning of an announcement or something. Almost like on a cruise ship.

Eli Price (01:01:01.156)
Mm hmm. Yeah. It's like, *sings 5 notes* the aliens are here. But yeah, it I think John Williams had like a few hundred examples that he played for Spielberg. And I think I think John Williams even said Spielberg reached out to a friend that was good at math and was like, how many like iterations of five?

Sam (01:01:08.775)
Yeah.

Sam (01:01:20.746)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:01:31.192)
musical notes are there. And there's like, I think he was like a hundred and something thousand. Um, and so, um, you know, John Williams kind of like played him some more and it was finally, it ended up just being kind of like, well, that one sounds good. I guess, I guess we'll go with that one kind of thing. And it, it just like plays so well. Um, but yeah, um, more stuff about.

Sam (01:01:36.559)
Oh, yeah.

Sam (01:01:53.841)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:02:00.088)
Uh, Carrie Guffey who played, um, the little kid, Barry Guiler. Um, you know, we, we talked about how well Spielberg works with kids. And I think, you know, there's, there's a kid in, um, in jaws that, that kind of has a few like important moments, but here, like the kid is like pretty important. Um,

And Spielberg really had some like ingenious ways to get what he wanted out of the kid. So there's the scene where he's looking up at the sky out of the window. And Spielberg had like brought a present for him to set that day. He's like, he's like, Carrie, I'm going to open this present. Okay, I'm going to give you this present later. And so he was like, anticipating and excited. And so Spielberg like got up on a ladder and like,

Sam (01:02:44.227)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:02:56.212)
Unstarted unwrapping the present for him and, um, and, you know, you can kind of see his face, like getting bigger and bigger and more excited. And it's cause like Spielberg's like slowly opening the present. Um, and then he shout, if, if you remember, he shouts toys, toys. Um, and it's because there were toys in the present, um, which in the, in the movie, it just kind of plays like, you know,

Sam (01:03:00.086)
Hmm.

Sam (01:03:18.058)
That's awesome. I didn't know that.

Eli Price (01:03:24.304)
Oh, he, you know, he thinks that alien ships are toys, but no, there was, he was literally looking at Spielberg, holding some toys for him. Yeah. Um, and then like Spielberg would sit him down and be like, okay, Carrie, you know, I'm going to explain what's going to happen so you don't get scared. And he would like walk him through exactly like what they were going to do, um, for this scene. Um, and so, um,

Sam (01:03:31.49)
That's awesome.

Eli Price (01:03:52.6)
like, uh, like the kitchen sequence where, um, Dylan is like, as the actress is just like freaking out. Um, and it's because they didn't rehearse that scene. Um, but Spielberg walked Carrie through it. Um, and he didn't walk her through it. It, he just like, it was kind of like, all right, go. And so, uh, Carrie knew what was going to come and, um, in the making of doc, he, uh, he kind of talks about.

remembering like thinking why is she, why is she so scared? I guess Steven didn't tell her what was going to happen. Um, and, uh, the only time that they didn't, um, Spielberg didn't like sit him down and walk him through was, um, because he needed to get a particular reaction, it's when, um, he goes downstairs to the kitchen kind of towards the beginning. Um, and he has these like.

Sam (01:04:29.326)
That's funny.

Sam (01:04:48.92)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:04:51.568)
kind of several different reactions. Um, he kind of walks in and at first he's kind of like, what's going on reaction and he's like, has that like smile. Um, and then he looks over and he kind of looks scared for a second, but then he smiles like really big. So what they did was they had, um, a clown standing there. So he walked in and he kind of like, was like, what's going on, but it's like, oh, it's a clown.

Uh, that makes me happy. And then a guy in a gorilla suit kind of jumped out over on the side. And that's why he like looked scared for a second, but then the guy like took the mask off and it was like the guy who did his makeup every day. And so then he smiled because he was like, Oh, it's that guy. It's like really ingenious, like stuff, like, um,

Sam (01:05:37.266)
Yeah.

Sam (01:05:42.242)
Well, it's just incredible, like the emotions he's able to, because you really feel like those are genuine emotions from the kid. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:05:48.404)
Yeah. And they all it's because they are, um, they are genuine emotions. Like it's not, it's really like, it's not acting when, you know, uh, for the kid, it's just not acting. And that really like, there's so many examples of like bad child actors because it's hard for, I think it's just hard for kids to like, they're, it's hard to separate, like.

Sam (01:05:58.526)
Yeah, yeah, for the kid.

Sam (01:06:08.706)
Thank you.

Eli Price (01:06:17.432)
what's real and what's not real for kids. Yeah.

Sam (01:06:21.046)
Yeah, I just think acting is hard for kids, because it's like, well, I don't feel like that, so why do I need to do that? Yeah.

Eli Price (01:06:26.668)
Right. Yeah. And so like to just like bypass that and say, okay, I can't tell him to feel this way. So I'm just going to make him feel this way and have the cameras rolling.

Sam (01:06:39.019)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's brilliant.

Eli Price (01:06:44.32)
Um, yeah, just super smart. Uh, I guess we do need to talk about a little bit about the aliens and the UFOs and whatnot. Um, Spielberg wanted like different races of aliens. That's, that's why you kind of do, I think you in the movie, you end up seeing like three different kinds sort of. There's like the, yeah. Yeah. There's the big like spindly guy that comes out at first.

Sam (01:07:06.986)
Yeah, I remember at least two.

Eli Price (01:07:14.716)
Um, he's kind of creepy. He was like a Marionette, I think. Um, and they, they had, I think the first thing Spielberg tried was to put a orangutan in a, um, alien costume, but, but it like didn't work. Um, the, the orangutan just like wouldn't cooperate. And I think they even like put rollerblades on it and try to like have it come down the ramp. And it was just like flailing down the ramp on.

Sam (01:07:14.805)
Yeah.

Sam (01:07:18.967)
Hmm.

Sam (01:07:29.179)
Oh boy.

Sam (01:07:36.926)
Yeah, I can't imagine.

Sam (01:07:45.814)
That's wild.

Eli Price (01:07:47.162)
But they ended up using, they couldn't do marionettes for like all of them because back then there wasn't a way to like remove all the cables and strings in post-production like we have now. And so they ended up using little girls. It was like Spielberg wanted little girls because they have a certain like, I guess, posture and...

Sam (01:07:56.866)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:08:13.92)
Uh, a way that they kind of held themselves that he wanted. Um, and so, yeah, it's just a bunch of little girls in alien costumes. Um, and if you, if you see them like up close in the alien costumes, like it doesn't look that great, but the way they have the lighting, um, they're mostly like silhouetted, um, with that lighting from the mothership.

Sam (01:08:18.871)
Huh.

Sam (01:08:22.402)
That's funny.

Sam (01:08:31.947)
Yeah.

Yeah, that lighting was doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Eli Price (01:08:38.868)
Oh yeah. The lighting and the kind of misty cloudiness did a lot for that. Yeah, and then the, like I kind of mentioned earlier, there's the guy that kind of puppeteers the alien that does the hand gestures. And he kind of looks, he looks similar to the small aliens, but he's not exactly the same. So that's why I said there's three different.

Sam (01:08:44.699)
Yeah.

Sam (01:09:05.298)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:09:08.516)
three different kinds. The UFOs, kind of thinking back to the whole McDonald's debacle he had with Paul Schrader, there actually was at one point they were toying with some UFOs that were trying to look like logos. And so they had two arch-shaped ones that were supposed to come together and look like a McDonald's arches. And

Sam (01:09:37.591)
That's funny.

Eli Price (01:09:38.452)
a couple of others that they didn't end up doing any of that stuff. They just kind of went with conical shapes that have different sorts of light patterns. Um, we're just smart. Um, yeah. And again, you know, all of this is done practically. Um, and then they would do like different exposures, um, that they would, uh, I think they would like layer those different exposures. Um,

Sam (01:09:48.038)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:08.144)
because you would get like, you would do like an exposure with smoke and it gives a certain like effect to the way the lights work and then you do an exposure with no smoke and you kind of get like the light rings and stuff that show up. And so I think what they did is they would layer like several different exposures to get kind of all those effects in one for the ships. Which is, sounds like a lot of work to me.

Sam (01:10:22.23)
Yeah.

Sam (01:10:31.213)
Yeah.

Sam (01:10:37.178)
Yeah, yeah, it definitely would have been like just a lot of repetition. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:45.549)
Yeah, because you got to get those movements. If you are layering the different exposures, you have to get the same movement over and over. I think.

Sam (01:10:54.674)
Yeah. And a lot of it, if it's like on a, if it's like a dolly shot or something, then there were, um, I think they had just started using like, um, like, um, motorized dollies and stuff. And so you could program the movement and then you can just repeat that movement and then whatever everything else is doing.

Eli Price (01:11:09.346)
Mm, yeah.

Eli Price (01:11:13.442)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:11:17.093)
Yeah, that would make it a lot easier, that's for sure. Mm-hmm.

Sam (01:11:21.394)
Yeah, but you still got to go and set up everything and do that exact movement, however many takes and then do it for each layer. So yeah, it would be, I think it would be pretty tedious. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:11:32.576)
a lot of work. The clouds are cool too. I think they did those in like these, it's actually another like really smart thing they did with these tanks and paint, which makes sense. You're like, oh yeah, the paint swirling looks like clouds. But they wanted the effect of like the cloud only comes down so far obviously in the atmosphere.

And so they had these tanks that were half saltwater, half freshwater. And so it created this natural resting spot where the paint wouldn't really go down below that from the, I guess, the different densities. So that was really cool. The stars were done fairly uniquely.

Sam (01:12:06.585)
Hmm.

Sam (01:12:13.808)
Interesting.

Sam (01:12:18.046)
Yeah, that's cool.

Eli Price (01:12:28.76)
Like there's that really striking shot where he's driving his truck kind of across and down the highway and the sky is just like beautiful, like lit with stars in the background. Um, and they, they actually like did, um,

Eli Price (01:12:48.172)
They did what typically is done as far as to make the stars, which is just lights on black paper, like white lights and black paper. But the way they got it layered in was they basically put the negatives on an animation board before they were developed and shot the star. I guess they had the paper and the white lights.

Sam (01:12:54.652)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:13:16.036)
behind the animation board, like, set up. So they were shooting those stars straight onto the negatives before they were developed. And then they would, yeah, so basically, like, the stars were on the final composite negative. And usually what was done was, like, you would go ahead and develop and do all that, and then you would add in that. And so you kind of lose some of the brightness and crispness in that process.

Sam (01:13:24.024)
Hmm.

Sam (01:13:44.421)
Interesting.

Eli Price (01:13:44.768)
And so they kind of, instead of doing the extra steps that are normally done, they just like, I guess, found a way to make them brighter and crisper. Yeah. It's just, I don't think this one for visual effects, but I feel like it really should have, I bet star Wars probably one. Um, uh, and that's probably deserved. Uh, but.

Sam (01:13:53.596)
Hmm.

Sam (01:14:04.334)
Probably, yeah.

Sam (01:14:09.886)
Yeah, I think it was. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:14:12.724)
Any other year, this should have won, you know, there's just so much, so much work going on. Um, the mothership is, it's inspired by an oil refinery that Spielberg would pass every day when he was in India. Um, when they were shooting over there, uh, and you can kind of see the top of the mothership anyway, which, um, to me, it looked like kind of like a cityscape.

Sam (01:14:43.103)
Yeah. I thought.

Eli Price (01:14:43.236)
Um, yeah, but it's actually like, it's modeled after like the pipes and bridges and stuff that you see like in an oil, big, huge oil refinery. Um, but had all the neon lights and whatnot, and it looks like a city scape. Um, and then the other underside, they use like front projection to get all the, like the swirling lights and whatnot on the underside of it. Um,

Sam (01:14:54.03)
Hmm.

Sam (01:14:58.598)
Yeah, yeah, I could see you there.

Sam (01:15:09.55)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:15:12.544)
And those shots took like one and a half to two days each to make. Um, which is, I don't know.

Sam (01:15:18.441)
Yeah.

Sam (01:15:22.558)
Yeah, because if they were, I'm assuming they were lighting all that like practically like it was all done in camera. So yeah.

Eli Price (01:15:26.509)
Yeah, they were.

Eli Price (01:15:30.048)
It was, yeah. Yeah. The, one of the two fun facts that go along with the mothership, the dog that runs off, um, the ramp when the people start coming out as Spielberg's dog Elmer. Uh, so that's a, that's a trivia night. Um, fact for anybody out there that does trivia. Um, and also there's a close, there's, you know, there's.

Sam (01:15:46.443)
Yeah.

Sam (01:15:51.915)
I'll tuck that one away.

Eli Price (01:15:58.828)
Spielberg usually like does a good variety of like wide to medium to close shots. Um, and, uh, so like even like the mothership coming up from behind devil's tower, like you get the wide shots and some medium, and then there's even like a few, like closer up so you can see, like, you really get a sense of like the scale. Um, but at one of those close-up ones, um, and this goes back to the star wars thing.

Sam (01:16:05.898)
Yeah.

Sam (01:16:21.171)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:16:27.904)
one of the guys that like worked on star wars. Um, he, they actually put like a little art to D two on part of the ship. Um, yeah. And so if you look really close, um, which in the, in the making of doc, they kind of slow it down and like circle it and you're like, oh yeah, it's hard to D two. Um, on the mothership, uh, which I'm wearing a R2D2 shirt. Um, it's, it's the only thing related. Uh,

Sam (01:16:37.408)
Oh really?

Sam (01:16:47.959)
That's awesome.

Sam (01:16:52.927)
Nice.

Eli Price (01:16:56.556)
related to the movie in any, any way at all that I had a shirt of. Um, but yeah, a little, a little homage, which Spielberg actually was like. One of the early believers, you know, him and Lucas were already good friends. And, um, and, uh, you know, those guys and score Sazy and Brian DePalma and Francis Ford Coppola, they were all actually like really good buddies back then, um, and, uh,

Sam (01:16:59.859)
Yeah, that's awesome.

Sam (01:17:12.853)
Yeah.

Sam (01:17:23.646)
Yeah, well they were sort of the like American New Wave cinema, I feel like they were all pushing the boundaries.

Eli Price (01:17:27.773)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. And I would say Spielberg probably Spielberg and Lucas were like kind of on the fringes of that. They, I wouldn't say they were, um, actually a lot of critics say they kind of like ruined the new Hollywood. Um, but, um, but you know, he, him and Lucas were kind of more of the same. Sort of mindset and same as opposed to those other guys, they were a little

Sam (01:17:33.866)
in cinema.

Sam (01:18:01.119)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:18:01.856)
Um, on the fringes of that group, I guess. Um, but yeah, a lot of those other guys, like really were like the Star Wars movie, you know, it's, it's not going to do anything and Spielberg was like the only one he was like, no, I think this movie is going to make like a hundred million dollars and, you know, it made a lot more than that, but, um, beat out. Jaws. Yeah.

Sam (01:18:21.194)
Yeah. Well, they were just so commercially successful that like they get, they sort of get flack for that, I think in some way. Like it's like, oh, well, he's sort of, I guess he's the whatever Marvel director of today. It's like, it's not cinema. It's just whatever the quote that, what's his name had recently about.

Eli Price (01:18:30.264)
They do, yeah.

Eli Price (01:18:39.2)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:18:44.416)
Yeah? Uh-huh.

Eli Price (01:18:49.465)
I think it was Scorsese actually.

Sam (01:18:50.718)
Yeah, of course, Azzy, I think it was. He just hates all the Marvel movies, so it's great.

Eli Price (01:18:55.368)
Yeah. It's funny. I think, I think me and Daniel on the jaws episode kind of talked about like, would we have the MCU if not for jaws? Um, cause jaws is like notoriously the first summer blockbuster. Um, yeah. And, uh, yeah, we, we kind of talked about that cause there was like this sequence of summer blockbuster movies three years in a row that really like kicked it off. It started with jaws.

Sam (01:19:05.618)
Hmm.

Sam (01:19:11.021)
Oh, interesting, yeah.

Eli Price (01:19:23.376)
Then there was Rocky the next summer. And then the summer after that was Star Wars. So you really had this sequence that really made the summer blockbuster push from the studios. Oh, we've all got to do this now. So that's an interesting question. Would you have the MCU without Jaws?

Sam (01:19:29.783)
Hmm.

Sam (01:19:39.243)
that thing. Yeah.

Sam (01:19:44.381)
Hmm. Yeah.

That's true. Well, they were certainly, you know, I feel like they were at least pushing, like visual effects and stuff. You know, I mean, they were pioneering a lot of that in a lot of Spielberg movies and Lucas films.

Eli Price (01:19:48.879)
Um.

Eli Price (01:19:57.102)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (01:20:00.886)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:20:04.768)
Yeah, I mean, and you know, we, they really like brought, uh, sci-fi into popular culture. I think, you know, sci-fi was still on the fringes of, of pop culture. And they

Sam (01:20:16.596)
Yeah.

Sam (01:20:20.822)
But one question I had was like, had there been many like alien encounter movies done before this? Like I'm sure there must've been, but.

Eli Price (01:20:31.18)
Yeah, I mean, I mean, you have stuff like the thing and invasion of the body snatchers and obviously 2001 doesn't like show aliens, but there's definitely like something going on.

Sam (01:20:42.833)
Yeah.

Sam (01:20:48.534)
But that's more of like a, yeah, I feel like that's more of like a space movie in some ways.

Eli Price (01:20:54.784)
Yeah. I mean, that's a good question. I didn't really like do a whole lot of research of that. I don't know of. I don't know of many. And actually, let me see the thing was, oh, the thing was after this, which, which as I was saying it, I was like, actually, I think the thing is after but like, invasion of the body snatchers is like

Sam (01:21:02.514)
I didn't either, so I'm just, yeah.

Eli Price (01:21:23.936)
Noah, that was after 2.

Sam (01:21:27.65)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:21:28.004)
That was set the next year, 70s. Or maybe I'm looking at the wrong, yeah, the original one's 56. So yeah, I mean, they weren't like, there weren't many of them. You have like, it came from outer space as a 50s movie. These are, they were all B movies. And you know, that's what Spielberg was like setting out to make. Like he was like, I wanna do this really cool B sci-fi movie.

Sam (01:21:34.909)
Okay.

Sam (01:21:39.731)
Yeah.

Sam (01:21:47.828)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam (01:21:58.107)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:21:58.372)
Um, just with like a bigger budget, that's the note. So it makes the difference. He just had a big budget to work with. Um,

Sam (01:22:06.078)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:22:09.76)
Yeah. And then he also had, which is what was next on my list. Uh, John Williams doing the score, which, how did you like the score for this?

Sam (01:22:18.678)
That helps.

Sam (01:22:22.942)
You know, I didn't, I don't know, I feel like it didn't even really register for me. Like it seemed, I don't know, I really didn't pay too close attention to it.

Eli Price (01:22:28.676)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:22:33.024)
Is it cause yeah, I was, I was going to say, do you think it's cause like it just kind of melded so well, or do you think it's just like, you've heard so many John Williams scores by now it's kind of like, Oh yeah, John Williams doing his thing or

Sam (01:22:51.414)
Yeah, I just think it just sort of blended pretty well with the film that, yeah, it just didn't, and I don't think there was like a real, aside from like the five notes, I don't think there was like a real like theme, like Indiana Jones or Jaws obviously. So there wasn't like that like.

Eli Price (01:23:07.266)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:23:13.912)
Yeah. No, yeah, that's true.

Sam (01:23:19.954)
Again, other than the five notes, there wasn't like a, yeah, there wasn't like a real strong theme, or at least I didn't pick up on it if there was like.

Eli Price (01:23:22.904)
Yeah, the thing to like attach to.

Eli Price (01:23:28.8)
Yeah. No, I think you're right. Cause I think I remember, um, Williams talking about, he does a lot of like. In this score switching between like tonal and non tonal, um, music. Uh, and so like, you know, the non tonal stuff would, would kind of obviously be in the more like creepy and suspenseful sequences. Um, and then, uh,

Sam (01:23:42.681)
Hmm.

Sam (01:23:52.565)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:23:55.148)
Yeah. The tonal stuff is obviously like the more like inspirational and big sounding stuff. Um, and so it's pro that might be why, cause they're, this film does kind of have less consistency in the score. There's, you know, he has to kind of do two different things throughout. Um, but, um, but yeah, I, I thought, um,

Sam (01:23:59.69)
Yeah.

Sam (01:24:14.175)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:24:20.216)
Well, before I say that, um, I did think it was funny. Spielberg, um, was bringing on John Williams, but he was like worried because the star Wars score was he, he was like, that's one of the best things I've ever heard in my life. And he was worried that John Williams, like, wouldn't have anything left in the tank after making that score. Um, but, uh, but I think he even. Yeah. I think he, um, when he heard the first, like things that Williams had worked on.

Sam (01:24:38.997)
Yeah.

Sam (01:24:42.333)
It's a fair concern.

Eli Price (01:24:49.656)
He like teared up because it was like, it like made him tear up because he loved it so much, um, sort of thing. Um, which is always cool to hear, you know, that kind of passion. Um, but yeah, he Spielberg called John Williams's scores, like a character in and of themselves. Um, which I think is, is pretty true. Um,

Sam (01:24:55.007)
Hmm.

Sam (01:24:58.487)
Yeah.

Sam (01:25:08.396)
Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like him and Zimmer sort of have, you know, that they've earned that distinction, I think.

Eli Price (01:25:16.792)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:25:21.28)
Oh yeah, for sure. But yeah, he, um, the one thing I did notice was, so there's that, um, little, I don't know what it is. It's like a little trinket that plays when you wish upon a star that shows up earlier in the film. Um, it's kind of like in a transition sequence. Um, it trans like, yeah, it's like a little, um, it's like a little Disney trinket that like.

Sam (01:25:38.498)
I don't know what to say.

Sam (01:25:42.53)
I don't know if I caught that.

Eli Price (01:25:50.584)
He uses as like a cutaway shot to transition into like the family living room or something. And it's playing like when you wish upon a star and the little like chimes or whatever. And Spielberg actually said like that song, thinking about that song was something he used like for inspiration for like what the movie is doing thematically.

Sam (01:25:56.816)
Okay.

Sam (01:26:03.784)
Okay.

Sam (01:26:19.191)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:26:19.752)
And in that final, like huge swelling score, um, I actually noticed listening. Uh, I was like, you can hear when you wish upon a star kind of work, like kind of blended into, uh, the score. Um, it's worth, it'll, it's, it's worth going back and listening to that, that final like piece. Um, yeah. Um, it's like,

Sam (01:26:33.745)
Oh cool.

Sam (01:26:42.902)
Yeah, I'll have to check that out.

Eli Price (01:26:47.304)
It's just like the first part of it is it goes like, and I think it like moves on, but it's like very distinctly, like you can tell it's doing it. Um, which I thought was a cool little like homage.

Sam (01:26:56.63)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam (01:27:03.647)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:27:05.12)
Yeah, like wrapping up, he did have to go back out and do six more shots to kind of wrap up everything he needed. And then yeah, jumped into the editing room and spent nine months post-production and editing and stuff. Spielberg says, if I had not made Jaws, Close Encounters would have been the toughest production of my memory.

Sam (01:27:21.398)
Yeah.

Sam (01:27:34.658)
So second toughest.

Eli Price (01:27:34.716)
And second toughest, making them back to back too. So.

Sam (01:27:41.562)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:27:43.892)
I would imagine he really had a rough go of it with Jaws. So I would imagine he would have had to been like in a pretty good place to, to not kind of have a rough go with this one too. Um, but yeah, you know, I mentioned Columbia kind of pushed for the, the November Christmas release. Um, and, uh, yeah, a budget that started at 4 million and grew to 19.

Sam (01:27:57.555)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:28:13.232)
20 million, I think, is what the budget ended up being. Um, got returns. He had a final worldwide, uh, box office of 288 million, which it's a lot of money back then. It's, um.

Sam (01:28:26.406)
Yeah, well that's quite the return on Columbia's investment for sure.

Eli Price (01:28:30.644)
Yeah. He did go back. So there's a, there's different versions of this. I, uh, I watched the theatrical one. Um, do you, do you know what, did you stream it somewhere or rent it?

Sam (01:28:44.006)
Yeah, I streamed it from Amazon. So whatever they.

Eli Price (01:28:48.8)
Yeah, it's probably the theatrical version. I would imagine unless it, it said it would probably have to say like director's cut or special edition. Um,

Sam (01:28:53.235)
Yeah.

Sam (01:28:58.706)
Yeah, I don't think it was a theatrical.

Eli Price (01:29:01.268)
Yeah, that's, that's what I watched. The there's a special edition version that, um, Spielberg got Columbia to let him do so that he could like add all the stuff that he had wanted in the original, um, in, but they, the deal they made with him was that they were like, okay, uh, if we're going to let you do this and give you the money to do it, um, you have to give us a shot. Like everyone wants to see the inside of the mothership.

Sam (01:29:16.875)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:29:30.804)
And so, um, if you watch that version, like at the end, there's like this, like short sequence where like you're inside the mothership and Roy Neer is like walking in and you see like tons of silhouettes of aliens and stuff. And Spielberg like regrets doing that. He was like, I wanted, he was like, I never should have done that.

Sam (01:29:45.611)
Yeah.

Sam (01:29:49.18)
Yeah, I was... Because that was in the...

Sam (01:29:55.12)
Yeah, that was in the version I saw. And I... Yeah.

Eli Price (01:29:59.304)
Oh, it was? Okay. That was that was the special edition one then that you watched.

Sam (01:30:03.398)
Okay. Yeah. Which I thought I just, I found it kind of odd. I can see why he would.

Eli Price (01:30:09.969)
Did it also have like a boat in the middle of the desert in the version you watched? Yeah, that's the special edition.

Sam (01:30:16.512)
Yeah.

Okay.

Eli Price (01:30:21.92)
Yeah, that was like one of the shots he, he wanted to get into the original, but didn't have time to work it in stuff.

Sam (01:30:29.722)
Yeah, the Codopaxi boat, did it go missing? Yeah, but I, cause I feel like at the end, when he's like walking in, it just kind of seems like.

Eli Price (01:30:31.522)
Mm-hmm.

Sam (01:30:43.174)
unnecessary to, you know.

Eli Price (01:30:45.168)
Yeah. So in their, in their original theatrical cut and also like, so he did do a director's cut later on and he took that back out, um, and those, it just ends with, he just walks onto the ship and then the ship like starts taking off and this like the end of the movie. Um, yeah. So just like take whatever, take the inside of the ship and like throw that away and then judge it on, uh,

Sam (01:30:54.467)
Hmm.

Sam (01:31:03.014)
Yeah, I feel like that's way better. Yeah.

Sam (01:31:12.936)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:31:13.324)
judge it on it without that, because that he never wanted to do that. And he like regretted doing it. Um, yeah, it's weird that Amazon just like has the special edition as like the main, main thing.

Sam (01:31:20.86)
Yeah, it just seemed that...

Sam (01:31:27.712)
Yeah, I don't know if it said it was like a special edition, but yeah.

Eli Price (01:31:36.736)
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Um, the, the 40th anniversary, blu ray disc has all three. You can, you can see it right here over my head. I've been trying to put, um, put the movies behind me. Uh, it's one of the ones that like the jaws one over here. Um, if you're listening to this, this is going to be a very boring podcast content. Um, but the jaws one is very like obvious, but close encounters.

Sam (01:31:51.587)
Oh, yeah.

Sam (01:32:01.411)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:32:05.388)
40th anniversary edition is... it's not obvious what it is. It's too little back there in the background.

Sam (01:32:13.354)
Yeah, so it was the... I just wasn't paying close attention, but It was the 21st anniversary re-release edition Is what I saw But they do they did have I guess the original version Available as well, so

Eli Price (01:32:25.088)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And they

Eli Price (01:32:34.22)
available on Amazon. Yeah. Well, now you know, folks, if you haven't, if you haven't watched it yet, then just either watch the theatrical or the director's cut, just don't watch the special edition. Um, the director's cut, I think is a similar length. Um, so I don't think, I think maybe he takes a little bit out, adds a little bit in sort of thing. Um,

Sam (01:32:39.458)
There you go.

Sam (01:32:49.159)
Yeah.

Sam (01:32:59.945)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:33:03.332)
But yeah, I think I heard there's more like, um, domestic stuff in the director's cut, like more like arguments with him and Ronnie and stuff like that. Um, yeah.

Sam (01:33:10.806)
Family. Yeah, that's not hard to imagine.

I feel like that drove a lot of his filmmaking.

Eli Price (01:33:22.285)
Yeah, I mean...

Just kind of wrapping up all that, the reception to this film, as you can imagine, was mostly positive, but did have its kind of detractors. You have people like Pauline Kale, who was a big, like she was a big deal critic back then. She said that it was a children's film in the best sense of the word. I think she was just kind of meaning like capturing kind of the wonder.

Sam (01:33:49.176)
Hmm.

Sam (01:33:53.659)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:33:54.7)
of a child, Ray Bradbury, who was an author, a sci-fi author. Is he's, um, Fakenheit? Yeah. He said it was the most important film of our time. Uh, that's, that's pretty high praise. Um, I liked this quote from, uh, the Times, Frank Rich back, uh,

Sam (01:34:01.544)
Yeah.

Fahrenheit 451. Yeah, I think

Sam (01:34:13.204)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:34:21.868)
review he wrote back when this released. He said, what lifts this film into orbit and what saves it from being a shaggy flying saucer story is the breathless wonder that the director brings to every frame. Spielberg seems to be looking at everything on screen as if for the first time. Yeah, and I thought that was a really cool little, like that's what I would put on my DVD release, that quote.

Sam (01:34:39.714)
Hmm. Yeah, that's good.

Sam (01:34:49.167)
Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (01:34:51.372)
If I had that decision, um, there were negative ones too. Um, I'm actually listening to the audio book version of a book called Steven Spielberg, a life and film by a critic named Molly Haskell, who, um, was. A Spielberg detractor back in the day. Um, and somehow ended up writing a biography about him. Um, and she's, she's much more like graceful and.

Sam (01:35:11.255)
Hmm.

Sam (01:35:16.638)
Interesting.

Eli Price (01:35:20.964)
like respecting his work in the biography. I think she maybe has come around a little bit since back then.

Sam (01:35:27.416)
I think she might have been in that documentary about Spielberg that I saw.

Eli Price (01:35:31.472)
She might've been, now that you say that, yeah. But yeah, the book is pretty good. It's a very boiled down biography that kind of has a critic's flair to it. Like she talks kind of briefly through making of and stuff in his life around.

Sam (01:35:33.874)
I don't remember, but yeah, I think she might've been.

Sam (01:35:50.199)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:35:59.428)
He, she does it by like each film kind of thing. Um, but she also does some like ads and some stuff that you might not get in a typical biography, which is like her take on why he did things a certain way, kind of like that, that critic viewpoint. So it's, it's a good, it's a pretty good little book so far. So, um, but back then.

Sam (01:36:16.822)
Hmm. Interesting.

Eli Price (01:36:23.316)
She said in her review of the film, quote, the dumbest story ever told, unquote. So we've she came full circle writing that quote in her review of the movie to writing a biography about Spielberg. So and she admits in the biography that, you know, she was a little too harsh, I think. But

Sam (01:36:29.171)
Thank you.

Nice.

Sam (01:36:39.273)
Yeah.

Sam (01:36:49.482)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:36:52.388)
But yeah, it really like we were, we kind of talked about it earlier, but it, it kind of the, the responses to jaws in this movie for Spielberg kind of foreshadow a lot of like the snobbery kind of against his movies. And especially this one, because this is, this is his first movie that really like puts his idealism on full display. Um, and so yeah, that's just like a section of.

Sam (01:37:15.575)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:37:22.548)
art snob, snobbish people that don't like idealism. But I think there's a place for it, so.

Sam (01:37:26.349)
Yeah.

Well, I feel like it's always in vogue to be snobby against idealistic art. Like, I just, that seems to be the cool thing to do, unfortunately.

Eli Price (01:37:36.26)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:37:41.632)
Yeah, it's just too bad because man, like, I like a good depressing movie. Don't get me wrong, but I like it. I need the idealistic movies too, to pick me back up, you know?

Sam (01:37:52.786)
Yeah, well, I mean, the thing is, like most people like that, you know, like, there's a reason. I think that's part of the reason why his movie stood so well.

Eli Price (01:37:58.691)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:05.664)
Yeah, for sure. Uh, yeah, I mean, there's, there's a reason these are the summer blockbusters and not like, um, the, the depressing sad, uh, you know, new wave. Um, yeah, you know, I mentioned eight, eight Oscar nominations, mostly for technical stuff. Um, Zygmunt wins for cinematography.

Sam (01:38:16.344)
Yeah.

January release.

Eli Price (01:38:32.932)
Spielberg gets his first director nomination, which he should have got for Jaws, but you know. Yeah. Let's kind of just transition into talking about kind of some takeaways and things we really liked about this film.

Sam (01:38:38.346)
Yeah, that's surprising.

Sam (01:38:54.52)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:58.056)
So we talked a little bit about Close Encounters, Star Wars, really being on the front end of the propulsion of sci-fi into something more than just a B movie. And I don't know. It's interesting to look back and think about movies like this, which this one

Sam (01:39:15.286)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:39:26.228)
I feel like Close Encounters in the modern eye is a little less important than Star Wars. But back then, I feel like it was like they kind of went hand in hand. Like I feel like people loved Star Wars and people loved Close Encounters and they were the, you know, it was all the same people. And

Sam (01:39:50.159)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:39:53.728)
It really like, it is amazing to that these filmmakers.

I don't know. It just, it makes me wonder like, okay, like who do we have today? That's like going to push like the art form in that way. Like, um, uh, and I'm sure it'll happen. It's just kind of like, it's, it's fun to look back and think like these people really didn't like even understand the scope of what these guys were, we're going to like set into motion for, for the whole.

Sam (01:40:14.326)
Yeah.

Sam (01:40:31.18)
Right.

Eli Price (01:40:32.396)
art, like the whole industry and the whole art form.

Sam (01:40:37.994)
Well, I think it was in Christopher Nolan's Oscar speech that he recently gave where it's like, he just sort of was just saying how that the art form itself is only like a hundred years old. And so it's like, I mean, you know, if you think about it, like books and theater have been around for hundreds of years.

Eli Price (01:40:55.074)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:41:02.265)
Mm-hmm.

Sam (01:41:04.39)
and art and painting and all that sculpting and everything. But like this is an art form that is really still somewhat of a baby. And so yeah, who knows.

Eli Price (01:41:13.775)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:41:17.068)
Yeah. And I think he said too, um, you know, he was honored to just be like, considered, you know, maybe an important part of it. Um, and you know, it, it's looking back like, you know, you know, we might be looking back 30 years from now. I mean, like, you know, Christopher Nolan was like a huge deal. Like these guys were back in, in the seventies, like really kind of making strides and, um,

Sam (01:41:41.779)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:41:46.136)
You know, maybe, maybe IMAX will be like every, everywhere people be shooting on IMAX film in 30 years and it's like, Oh, we can thank Christopher Nolan for this. You know, um, who knows? But, um, it's just easy to forget how risky that was. Like these were really risky movies. I mean, even like Lucas's friends were telling him like, dude, this, you know,

Sam (01:41:52.159)
Yeah.

Sam (01:41:58.955)
Yeah.

Sam (01:42:09.685)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:42:15.64)
Are you sure you want to make this the Star Wars thing? It seems like it's.

Sam (01:42:20.202)
Well, and it was so cobbled together too, like Star Wars, that is. I think I would imagine this was a little less cobbled together because he had already had a, you know, a success with Jaws. And so I think he had he had some credibility there. But yeah, I mean, these kinds of movies. Like there just weren't that many, if any, that were.

Eli Price (01:42:22.872)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:42:32.92)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:42:39.041)
Right.

Eli Price (01:42:48.112)
Mm-hmm.

Sam (01:42:50.098)
like serious sci-fi films. So like anything that gets made now, it's like

Eli Price (01:42:52.94)
Yeah. I don't, I don't think there was, I don't think there was such a thing as a series, like a sci-fi movie that you took serious. Um.

Sam (01:43:02.042)
Yeah, yeah, there wasn't just some sort of hokey. I mean, like, we can look back on this one and there's lots of it is, you know, you could you can judge it as being a bit hokey. And like, you kind of have to just look past a bunch of stuff. But yeah, for the time, like, you know, they're just they're, they're breaking new ground with these films. So

Eli Price (01:43:05.486)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:43:12.792)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:43:18.322)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:43:28.824)
Yeah. And like, it's really like, too, he's doing like very unconventional things for like, a sci fi genre. Like, for one, like, it's very idealistic, very optimistic, like, which is unconventional. And then to like, he's the

Sam (01:43:41.664)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:43:58.196)
Well, at least in the theatrical version, like he, he gets on the spaceship, but it's like, it's very ambiguous. Like what's going on? We don't really know. And I guess even like adding the scene where he's walking onto it doesn't, it still doesn't explain what's going on.

Sam (01:44:08.83)
Yeah.

Sam (01:44:14.642)
No, you don't or what's, you know, what happens really like.

Eli Price (01:44:18.496)
Yeah, or what happens after like, why do they choose Roy? Why did they like basically, you know, it's hard to like parse out, okay, are these aliens actually like benevolent or are they just like using us, but kind of like a little kinder than most other aliens would be about it? But yeah, you just don't, you don't know.

Sam (01:44:39.432)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:44:47.796)
It's very ambiguous and it's just amazing that like audience where audiences like loved it. Um, cause that's not typically even today, like, you know, like I know. So there's a recent sci-fi movie that I loved was annihilation. Um, I don't know if you, you've seen that movie. Um, but it's, it's got a super weird.

Sam (01:44:56.496)
Yeah.

Sam (01:45:12.381)
Uh, I don't think I have.

Eli Price (01:45:16.788)
ambiguous ending. Um, and like, it's very like, uh, kind of drawing the line in the sand sort of thing to do still. Like people really went for annihilation, but a lot of people are like, no, it's like, it doesn't make any sense. It's, you know, this ending is dumb.

Sam (01:45:36.594)
Oh, I think I, yeah, I think I did see it. And I do think the ending was dumb. I feel like I...

Eli Price (01:45:40.11)
Yeah.

Yeah, see, even, even like between us, uh, you know, appreciators of good film, like it's, it's hard to like make an ambiguous strange ending and like have the general audience just like totally go for it. Um, but I think it's, I think it's partly because of the authenticity that Spielberg injects in his movies. Um,

Sam (01:46:00.071)
Yeah.

Sam (01:46:12.82)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:46:13.696)
Like you're willing to kind of look back past the strangeness and the ambiguity because he has built, um, an emotional connection for these characters, uh, for you. And so you're kind of just like happy that Roy, uh, is getting what he wanted. And you don't, you don't really need to know like why or what's going on. You're just happy that.

Sam (01:46:26.09)
Right.

Sam (01:46:36.969)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:46:44.388)
This guy is finally getting to meet the aliens.

Sam (01:46:48.458)
Yeah, but then it's just like, well, so he's just like leaving his family and hey, you know, like there's, yeah, there's some of that, but yeah, yeah. I think what, what he does so well, Spielberg does is just, he gets you really invested in the characters, you know, and I think that is on display in this, in this film for sure.

Eli Price (01:46:53.384)
Yeah, there's that question for sure.

Eli Price (01:47:14.4)
Oh yeah. Yeah, well, let's talk about Roy. Like, I think it is interesting that question of like, how much is, like, I don't know, is Roy a good guy or not? You kind of like, if you really like analyze it, you're like, man, he's like just kind of going nuts and leaving his family.

What a screwed up dude. Um, but then at the same time. It's like, well, this alien race is like implanted this image in his mind. That's making them go crazy. Um, and so.

Sam (01:47:44.308)
Yeah.

Sam (01:47:57.086)
Yeah. I mean, I think he's a, I think he's a very sympathetic character for sure. But yeah, it's also like, okay, like obviously it has some things to work out.

Eli Price (01:48:02.401)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:48:10.64)
Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's a it's like a fine line that Spielberg really walks well in this movie. Even like, compared to all of his other movies, I feel like this character is harder to make like sympathetic because of like what he's doing. Like he's literally kind of like going insane.

Sam (01:48:38.247)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:48:40.672)
obsessing over this image of a mountain and like driving his family away and like eventually just like leaving earth altogether. His family especially included in that. I mean like you make a care like if I were to explain that to somebody just like them not knowing this movie that would be like man what a crappy character but like you love this dude in the movie.

Sam (01:48:54.868)
Yeah.

Sam (01:49:08.07)
Right. Yeah, you're certainly like rooting for him. But he's yeah, he's still kind of like, bro, come on.

Eli Price (01:49:13.378)
Right.

Eli Price (01:49:18.304)
Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's like, I think, I think there is a lot there. I think there really is something to kind of thinking about Roy is kind of the artists stand in to, or the, in this case, it would be, you know, the Spielberg stand in just that idea of an artist having something in their head that they

need to see like manifested and fulfill it is kind of like sort of what's going on with Roy. He can't get this image out of his head. He has to get the answers. He has to like get it. He has to see it through. Like he has to see it fully manifested, this thing that's in his head. And you know, when you hear like

Sam (01:49:49.804)
Yeah.

Sam (01:49:56.108)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:50:14.892)
obsessive artists talk about their art. That's kind of how they talk about it. Like I had this story in my head or I had this image and like I had to get it on paper. I had to get it on canvas or, you know, whatever it may be.

Sam (01:50:23.416)
Yeah.

Sam (01:50:30.25)
Yeah, there's a compulsion and they're sort of the tortured artist aspect of it. And yeah.

Eli Price (01:50:34.152)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. And then on top of that, like he's he kind of feels like he doesn't fit in anywhere, which is a very Spielberg thing. Like he doesn't feel like he necessarily fits in his suburban life. He's a little strange, even like before he starts obsessing over the image, like he's just kind of like

Sam (01:50:47.967)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:51:03.124)
a strange kind of dude. He doesn't feel like necessarily he fits in. He doesn't feel like he fits in at his job. Like all these dudes like walking around like, and here's Richard Dreyfus. He's just kind of like this silly guy that's like, Oh, I guess I'll go find this power plant. And you know, you see the coworker kind of rolling his eyes like you're sending this guy. And yeah, he does a lot of subtle stuff like that, that you kind of subconsciously pick up on.

Sam (01:51:19.267)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:51:32.052)
of like, Oh, everyone kind of sees this guy as a little bit strange.

Sam (01:51:38.398)
Yeah, well, he's got like all of his like train models and stuff, which I think is also like Spielberg was super into trains, I think. And, you know, he's just sort of, yeah, a bit of an oddball, even before he got communicated to by aliens.

Eli Price (01:51:42.992)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:51:47.396)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:51:55.604)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:52:02.328)
But yeah, he's, he's an outsider. And so are all the people, you know, sitting on that hill waiting to see the aliens. And, um, yeah, I think that, I think those are like Spielberg's people. I think those are the people that he's like, these are, you know, out of all the characters, out of all, like the people in this movie, the people that are like setting up their picnic blankets to try to catch a side of the UFO, like those are.

Sam (01:52:10.419)
Yeah, that's true.

Sam (01:52:15.765)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:52:29.336)
Those are the people I'm interested in. Like those are the people that I connect with.

Sam (01:52:31.744)
Yeah.

Sam (01:52:35.583)
Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (01:52:37.26)
Yeah. And then you have the, the Barry character too, which I think is important because he's, he's like a crucial kind of, um, child character. Um, that kind of kicks off a lot of crucial child characters for, for Spielberg, you know, um, and, um, you know, we, we've already talked a lot of, about him, so we don't have to like delve deep into that, but, um, but yeah, just like the.

Sam (01:52:54.039)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:53:06.752)
I think Spielberg is drawn to the idea of, you know, kind of for kids, magic and fantasy and reality don't have necessarily like strong distinct lines yet. And I think that's a very like just attractive thing for Spielberg to explore that.

Sam (01:53:21.677)
Yeah.

Sam (01:53:27.806)
Yeah, and there's also, I think, just these sort of purity and innocence element of childhood wonder, you know, and you definitely see that with Barry. Like, he's just like, that's cool. Like, oh, go.

Eli Price (01:53:33.869)
Mm-hmm.

Oh yeah.

Eli Price (01:53:41.952)
Yeah, like all the toys come into life at towards the beginning. That's like super freaky, but he's just like, oh, this is so cool.

Sam (01:53:45.555)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam (01:53:51.626)
Yeah, which is you're kind of like, I don't know if most kids would react that way, but yeah.

Eli Price (01:53:55.564)
Yeah. I don't, I don't know that mine would. I think, I think my, my five year old son would freak out like what's going on.

Sam (01:54:06.686)
Yeah, yeah, I don't think he's normal in that sense. But he's just, he represents, yeah, yeah. But he represents that sort of childhood wonder and innocence, I think.

Eli Price (01:54:12.488)
Right. So I guess Barry's an outsider too.

Eli Price (01:54:22.957)
Yeah. And Spielberg did, you know, I mentioned the, when you wish upon a star, Spielberg said that the theme of the film is like influenced by, you know, that sort of idea of like wish fulfillment and kind of like bringing dreams to reality that people said couldn't, you couldn't do. Um, and so, you know, that's kind of.

Sam (01:54:44.234)
Hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:54:49.668)
That's what that's how you feel about Barry. Like this kid shouldn't be doing this, but he does. And especially like Roy, like, you know, his wife is like, you know, you're, you're going insane, but he's like, no, I'm seeing this through. And he does make the contact with the aliens and goes aboard, you know? Um, yeah, it's interesting. What, um, what about, uh, images and.

Sam (01:55:04.318)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:55:19.424)
like powerful sequences, were there any that stood out to you? I know I had a few kind of jotted down.

Sam (01:55:28.791)
Um...

Sam (01:55:36.4)
I don't feel like there are any...

images necessarily except maybe just the sequence of like him building the

Sam (01:55:50.23)
the sort of 3D structure of Devil's Tower, which is, I mean, that's sort of so ripe with metaphor and like all that kind of stuff. And so I feel like that's, I mean, it's just completely consumed him mentally and now, you know, physically in his house, like it's just this enormous structure. And so.

Eli Price (01:55:52.204)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:56:07.374)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (01:56:11.469)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I was always wondered like, why did he have to like, do it inside of his house? Like, why can't he?

Sam (01:56:20.402)
Or why did he have to do it so large? Like, but yeah, I mean, it's not, I think that was part of like sort of what, I feel like that was the representation of like, this is more how it feels, I guess, to the character is like, it's this giant thing I can't get past.

Eli Price (01:56:22.743)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:56:37.392)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:56:42.336)
Yeah. One of the things that I think it was Molly Haskell said was that like he, he was so like done with this like mundane toxic suburban life that like he starts up literally like uprooting his, um, his like yard. Um, and she kind of saw that as like a metaphor of like

He needs to uproot himself from this life. Uh, he can't, he can't do it anymore sort of thing. He doesn't belong there. I was like, Oh, that's interesting. Take, you know, it might be, I don't know if it's reading too much into it. Maybe it is, maybe not, but there's yeah. But, um, but yeah, that sequence is really good. And I think another reason it's good is because it shows how like

Sam (01:57:14.228)
Yeah.

Sam (01:57:28.826)
Yeah, I feel like maybe.

Eli Price (01:57:39.272)
Spielberg can build. He doesn't just need like the big, like the kitchen, like jumping apart to build tension. Like he can do it in subtle ways. Um, cause I noticed myself, like, um, I kept like, like getting really tense because, you know, you have the news broadcasts going on the TV and they keep showing the devil's tower and he's like walking around and you're like, dude, look at the TV, look at him. And he's like not looking at it.

Sam (01:57:50.218)
Yeah.

Sam (01:57:58.739)
Yeah.

Sam (01:58:05.19)
Yeah. No, that was great.

Eli Price (01:58:08.796)
And Spielberg like, yeah, he holds that like tension for like so long. And it's like a, it's not like something like dire happening. It's just like, you want the dude to see the devil's tower on the TV. So he'll know what he's looking for. Um, and you know, he finally does, but yeah, that that's like expert tension building.

Sam (01:58:20.014)
Right? Yeah.

Sam (01:58:30.654)
Yeah, well, and he does that throughout, like, no, like necessarily any particular like sequence per se, but like, I feel like the film at its best is a great sort of tension builder and like JJ Abrams talks about the mystery box, you know, like this is sort of one big mystery box and

Eli Price (01:58:33.104)
Mm-hmm

Eli Price (01:58:48.982)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (01:58:54.349)
Mm-hmm.

Sam (01:58:59.458)
the best part of it is before it's opened. As always is the case. It's always a little disappointing to sort of see what's inside.

Eli Price (01:59:05.594)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:59:10.384)
Mm-hmm. It's the whole like Hitchcock thing too. It's, um, it's you let the audience know that there's a bomb below the table and, um, and so now they're waiting for it, but, but you can hold that, you know, there's a, there's a certain point where like you can lose, but if you hold it to just the right point, then it's just like, it's the perfect like tension. Um,

Sam (01:59:20.853)
Yeah.

Sam (01:59:24.383)
Yeah.

Sam (01:59:37.459)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:59:38.944)
And that's sort of what he's doing too. Like you see in that particular sequence and other, like you said, in other places too, like you literally see what is, what would in the metaphor be the bomb, which is the devil's tower on the TV, the information he needs, but like he doesn't see it yet. So it's like just holding that and holding it and holding it. Um, yeah, I wrote down a few, I thought the first, um,

Sam (01:59:58.686)
Right.

Eli Price (02:00:09.776)
There's like the first encounter he has with the aliens actually starts with like a joke, which I thought was fun. Like he had the car come up, he stopped, you know, looking at the maps. Um, and that is kind of another way he builds tension subtly is like the map keeps coming up in front of the camera. Um, and you're like, Oh no, something's going to be, when he pulls the map down, something's going to be there. Like that never actually happens. Um, but yeah, the truck.

Sam (02:00:33.226)
Right.

Eli Price (02:00:38.476)
You know, it's parked and the car comes up behind him and he like waves them around. Um, and then you have like the alien, the, like the UFO lights come up behind him and he's like not paying any attention, just like trying to wave it around and it goes up, you know, um, uh, that was kind of comical to me. I, you know, it was like a chuckle moment. No.

Sam (02:00:47.026)
Yeah.

Sam (02:00:53.341)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam (02:00:59.454)
Yeah, I think that's sort of the level of comedy that Spielberg does is some chuckles. Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:01:03.257)
Right.

Not laugh out loud, but like, yeah, stuff like that. Um, yeah, that whole sequence is really good. Just like everything starting to shake. And, um, I feel like even today, like the, I feel like the effects hold up pretty well, it's still kind of like a very like startling experience. Um, yeah, that

Sam (02:01:17.981)
Yeah.

Sam (02:01:30.206)
Yeah. Well, and again, all the stuff is happening off screen and you know, and so I think that's what makes it so effective, you don't know what's really going on. Like you see the effects of it, but it's, you're not sure what's happening with the UFO and that kind of stuff.

Eli Price (02:01:35.472)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:01:49.204)
Yeah, for sure. The other, there were two other like big images for me. One is, um, it was interesting to hear Spielberg talk about. Um, so the mothership, when it's like first arriving, you would kind of think it would, you know, come down, but it actually like kind of comes up from behind the devil's tower. Um, and Spielberg kind of said, like there was, there wasn't really any.

Sam (02:02:13.567)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:02:19.06)
intellectual like choice behind that. He just thought it would look cool and it did. Um, so they did it and it does, like it's really effective. It's, um, I think it like, um, I guess he accidentally fell into a way of like. Being able to show like how big this thing is, um, in a more effective way than coming down. Um, if you like analyze it too long, you're like, where did that come from? How did it come up?

Sam (02:02:24.703)
Yeah.

Sam (02:02:40.383)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:02:48.748)
You know, but, um, yeah. Um, but yeah, it's a, when you first see that mothership coming up, it's very like striking and then, you know, everything that happens with the mothership is really like amazing to look at and hear because the, the sounds are like incredible. Um, all the, the music and everything that it's like playing back and forth.

Sam (02:02:49.018)
Yeah, and has it always been here?

Sam (02:03:00.179)
Yeah.

Sam (02:03:06.567)
Yeah.

Sam (02:03:15.677)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:03:18.66)
Um, but then the, I think the big image, and this is actually the image that, um, Spielberg points out as like the, his, like, I don't know if it's like, you would say favorite, but for him, like the most important image of the film is when Barry, uh, goes, when the, you know, UFOs are outside the house and Barry goes and like opens the door and it's just him standing in the doorway.

Sam (02:03:47.448)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:03:47.82)
with like the red light streaming in, just staring at it before, you know, his mom snatches them up. Um, and you know, it's just like that image of one, like childhood wonder. And, um, you know, I think Spielberg talked about like the willingness of children to like open doors. Um, and you know, I guess like him kind of desiring to have that.

Sam (02:03:49.972)
Yeah.

Sam (02:04:10.828)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:04:17.644)
willingness himself to like

And you know, he did, like he did a movie like this. That was like him opening the door, being willing to open the door. So, um,

Sam (02:04:29.042)
Yeah. Well, there's that potential of danger as well. That it's like, it might be great. It may be horrible.

Eli Price (02:04:31.747)
Right.

Eli Price (02:04:36.544)
Yeah. And that's, that's the, the other thing, Spielberg, I think, I kind of, I guess a thread through his filmography is like the, the fear mixed with wonder. Um, they kind of like go hand in hand. Uh, the things that are most like interesting and wondrous in his films also are a little bit like scary, um, or intimidating. Uh,

Sam (02:04:50.334)
Yeah.

Sam (02:05:02.807)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:05:04.984)
But yeah, that is a really amazing image.

Sam (02:05:05.375)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:05:10.448)
Uh, yeah, before we end, um, let's, let's hit on, uh, any themes. So like, um, you know, I obviously have a few noted, uh, in my outline. Um, were there any that like felt like prominent to you as far as like themes or just anything going on that.

Sam (02:05:10.506)
Yeah, that's a good one.

Eli Price (02:05:38.832)
You're like, oh, there's something to this.

Sam (02:05:41.902)
Um, I think like probably a theme that goes through a lot of his movies is just the dysfunction of family and like.

Sam (02:05:56.091)
the disappointment of fathers, I guess, that he deals with, I think, in a lot of his movies. And this one is no exception, which I just thought was really, really fascinating. And it's very, very present like that. I mean, you could say that it's really, you know, Roy.

Eli Price (02:06:06.096)
Mm-hmm.

Sam (02:06:24.206)
not coming to grips with his responsibilities as a father. And like he chooses to just escape rather than like deal with it and sort of grow up a little bit.

Eli Price (02:06:28.867)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:06:37.12)
Yeah. I think that's an all too common experience too. Um, not, you know, minus the aliens, but, but yeah. Right.

Sam (02:06:41.919)
Yeah.

Sam (02:06:45.758)
Yeah, less fantastical excuses. Yeah, but I, because I feel like it was in many ways, that's, I think the strength of the film is dealing in those areas.

rather than like, and just attention building to, you know, what's potentially out there. Because the first like half of it is really kind of a family.

Eli Price (02:07:10.454)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:07:19.822)
Yeah.

Sam (02:07:19.87)
A lot of it at least is like a family drama and like just trying to deal with all that and disappointment and you know all those sort of things that could be in any film. It just happens to be in one with aliens. Yeah. What about you?

Eli Price (02:07:22.498)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:07:36.564)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely there. I did.

Eli Price (02:07:46.352)
I did, I did write down that like the political stuff is like very minor. It's like, um, you know, you know, he talks about like being inspired by the UFO craze and Watergate. Um, like if you watch the documentaries, but you're like, the, what you, he really like skims over the political stuff. It's not very like prominent or important. Um.

Sam (02:08:09.724)
Yeah.

Sam (02:08:12.98)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:08:13.864)
And it's just not like that interested. I think the movie's not that interested in that aspect.

Sam (02:08:20.646)
No, no, because you could have gone way more into the governmental conspiracy side of it, for sure.

Eli Price (02:08:26.42)
Yeah. And we, you know, we talked about kind of relating to broken family, the kind of suburban mundanity and the, I guess, the toxicity that kind of can be in the midst of this nice neighborhood inside the walls of a home is definitely there.

Sam (02:08:46.025)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:08:51.244)
We talked, we did also talk about kind of the radical optimism of it, um, especially like for an alien invasion movie to like have the aliens be for, for all we can tell pretty benign. Like they're, they don't seem like they're really wanting to do harm to anyone. Um, and yeah, that, I mean, there, there is a

Sam (02:09:08.979)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:09:19.916)
a lot of optimism to that. Um, and I, I think too, like Spielberg talks about, um, the, the cinema being a place where like you connect people that are different, um, you know, I've heard him talk about that in interviews and stuff where you can go in, you know, to, to completely different people can go into the same theater and walk out, have, having shared the same experience. Um,

Sam (02:09:22.709)
Yeah.

Sam (02:09:47.886)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:09:49.192)
And I think like there's, he's doing something with that here of like, you know, if these aliens and humans can like communicate peacefully, then, you know, maybe there's hope for, for like different cultures of, of human, like humans or different, you know, sub subsections of culture to, to reconcile.

Sam (02:09:54.421)
Yeah.

Sam (02:10:06.228)
Yeah.

Sam (02:10:10.866)
Yeah, let me before you continue, let me need to plug in this laptop. It's dying on me.

Eli Price (02:10:16.278)
Oh yeah.

Sam (02:12:27.815)
Okay.

I had to go find an extension cord.

Eli Price (02:12:32.7)
Oh no. Yeah, I actually have one. I have to have one too for my setup.

Sam (02:12:41.278)
Yeah, I have a table that's kind of in the middle of the room here, and there's nothing really close.

Eli Price (02:12:46.552)
Yeah, I have a laptop on a stack of books on top of a chair.

Sam (02:12:53.246)
Yeah, same. Well, I have a stack of books on the table.

Eli Price (02:12:55.492)
Uh...

Yeah.

Sam (02:13:00.714)
Alright, we're away.

Eli Price (02:13:01.476)
All right. Yeah, I'll jump back in. Yeah, really the last, I guess, theme that I thought was interesting is the there's this like kind of religious, spiritual, like, I guess, undertone to this whole movie, which is, you know, it's interesting. It's vague.

But I think there is something there that's interesting to think about. Um, especially like with Spielberg having grown up kind of at odds with his, um, Jewish heritage and you know, not really, he just kind of like wrestled with all of that growing up. Um, so he, he didn't have like a strong religious background, like a director, like say scores at Martin score says he. Um,

Sam (02:13:51.374)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:13:59.824)
has. And so, um, but one thing I thought, um, Molly Haskell said in her biography of them, that I was like, Oh, that sort of rings true is it seems like Spielberg was like, um, just like born with, I guess you could say like a sense for the transcendent. Um, and you kind of see that.

Sam (02:14:00.361)
Yeah.

Sam (02:14:24.651)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:14:26.656)
in a lot of his films. I mean, even like just think about the Indiana Jones franchise, like they all end with these like very transcendent, like, um, like strange, otherworldly transcendent, like ha like things that happen at the end of their, those movies. Um, and films that are otherwise like pretty grounded. Um, you know,

Sam (02:14:38.869)
Yeah.

Sam (02:14:56.109)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:14:57.104)
And, you know, espionage and archeology and, you know, science and, you know, all that sort of stuff. Um, but.

Sam (02:15:05.554)
Yeah. Well, I think it's just sort of that exploration that there's more to this life, and I think you see that obviously in Roy's character, and he just wants to know what that is.

Eli Price (02:15:17.838)
right.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of lines, like, you know, he's, he's saying like, you know, this means something, this is important. And, you know, I just want an answer. Um, I think at one point he tells the true foe character, I just want to know that this is really happening or something like that. Um, but yeah.

Sam (02:15:26.452)
Yeah.

Sam (02:15:37.702)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you certainly see that, I think, coming through in Roy's character.

Eli Price (02:15:46.021)
Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely some existential questions that are driving a lot of his decisions. And you could even say that drive that he has, that image is sort of like this transcendent calling. It's like.

Sam (02:15:53.654)
Yeah.

Sam (02:15:59.284)
Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (02:16:10.92)
Something outside of himself has put this image in his head and he can't escape it. He has to pursue it. And it doesn't come from himself. It comes from something outside of himself, which is an important distinction, I think, to make because there is a lot of that, the theme of finding things within yourself in culture too.

Sam (02:16:12.919)
Right.

Sam (02:16:17.995)
Yeah.

Sam (02:16:37.055)
Right.

Eli Price (02:16:40.812)
You know, this is, this is distinct from that. It's, it's, it is something transcendent that places some sort of calling inside of Roy, um, which I think is interesting.

Sam (02:16:50.27)
Yeah, yeah, well, and I think kind of going back to the, a little bit to the governmental and political side of it is it's, I think you could very easily have taken a way more cynical tact from the government side of it, but even with them, it's very like optimistic and unifying, which is like...

Eli Price (02:17:07.684)
Mm-mm.

Sam (02:17:17.85)
Okay, that's idealistic and likely unrealistic. But it's you see that like, I think, Spielberg is dealing with these ideas of transcendence and finding unity outside of your own little reality. You know.

Eli Price (02:17:39.456)
Yeah. And yeah, I noticed that too, about the government stuff. It's pretty like optimistic about that in ways that like I probably wouldn't personally be. And even. Yeah, that was purposeful. He wanted it to feel like there was it was international cooperation going on.

Sam (02:17:51.87)
Yeah, you're letting this French guy run the whole thing?

Sam (02:18:03.506)
Yeah, which is, I mean, you know, good for good for good for him. But it's like, I don't know that that's like how this would all go.

Eli Price (02:18:09.232)
Hehehehe

Yeah. And even to like, you get the sense, like even when they're trying to like come up with a lie to tell the public, you get the sense that they, most of the people are like, uh, making that decision, like for the public good, then like, uh, not, not to cover something up, but to like, you know, uh, which is, I don't know. It's it's, it is funny.

Sam (02:18:27.695)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Sam (02:18:36.346)
Well, I think the whole like posture towards the aliens was that of like, uh, peace. Yeah. Intrigue, peace, assuming the best. So there was no like war footing or self-preservation. We're just like, just get the piano closer and we're just gonna, you know, so there's just.

Eli Price (02:18:46.768)
It's like scientific intrigue, kind of.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:18:57.038)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:19:02.408)
Yeah, we're gonna have a jam session with the aliens, you know. It's like, you know, it's, I guess it's the idea that rock and roll can save the world, you know. Yeah, that's great. But yeah, you know, there's definitely some transcendence, religious, spiritual, you know.

Sam (02:19:06.376)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam (02:19:13.866)
Basically, yeah.

Sam (02:19:28.866)
for sure.

Eli Price (02:19:29.46)
I don't know where Spielberg was when he was making this along all those lines, but there's definitely something, a thread going through there. Yeah. Do you have any final thoughts on Close Encounters?

Sam (02:19:40.404)
Yeah.

Sam (02:19:49.382)
I think it's a great film and I think it does stand the test of time in a lot of ways. There's a lot of sort of hokeyness I think that you kind of have to look past as it gets further into the film. Again, especially with some of the government stuff and like all that. But I think the best parts of it I think are that the tension building.

Eli Price (02:19:54.766)
Mm-hmm.

Sam (02:20:18.17)
And you're just like, what is this gonna be? And that sort of mystery box idea, like you know it's aliens, but like, what are they friendly? Like, what does this all mean? Like, why are they going to Devil's Tower? Like, what's going on? And just that sort of inner struggle with Roy. And really, really making it a real character driven.

Eli Price (02:20:20.654)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:20:38.34)
Mm-hmm.

Sam (02:20:48.11)
story I think makes it makes it last.

Eli Price (02:20:49.102)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:20:52.92)
Right. Yeah. The, the characters being forefront is a big thing. And yeah, the inner struggle with Roy, which, you know, we didn't talk a ton on, but there is like, there is something to that too, of like, there's a, there's a hint of doubt even like with all of his, like obsessiveness. Um, but yeah, there's definitely like, it's, it's more than

Sam (02:21:18.507)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:21:22.484)
I just didn't want people to go away with the impression that we thought, or that we thought like, oh, he's just like fully all in on this image. He is, but he's still unsure. He still doesn't know what he's after. But yeah. No, I just like the final thought I was going to end with is just thinking about...

Sam (02:21:39.538)
Yeah, yeah, he doesn't know why.

Eli Price (02:21:51.828)
Spielberg looking back on this movie. So there's, um, there's like a 20 year later, uh, when they did the special edition release, they did the, they did a little documentary, um, and Spielberg in the documentary said, um, that he could never make close encounters today. Um, and he said, the reason is cause like, I would never like leave. Um, he had a family at that point.

Sam (02:22:05.694)
Hmm

Eli Price (02:22:22.092)
Um, he didn't when he made Close Encounters. And so he was like, I just don't, I couldn't, I couldn't make that movie now. Um, and he even went on to say like, it's the only movie of his that he. We'll go back and watch that. He feels like dates him because of that reason. Um, which I thought was interesting. Um, and just, I guess, just thinking about like, you know, we.

Sam (02:22:24.694)
Hmm.

Sam (02:22:41.817)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:22:51.02)
we change and mature and, um, you know, find ourselves in places where we look back and, and think about like the choices we made, um, the kind of that we now see as naive. Um, but also like, you know, that's, that's kind of what the mind space, I think Spielberg was in, but as like an outside observer, I'm also like looking at it and thinking, yeah, but.

Sam (02:23:06.946)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:23:20.032)
you wouldn't be who you are now if you hadn't, you know, gone through that and made those choices and thought in that way. Um, so I don't know, just kind of thinking about all that and just like being, um, a good balance of like being, having gratitude for where you've come from and what you've been through that have made you who you are, but also like the

Sam (02:23:28.403)
Yeah.

Sam (02:23:46.859)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:23:49.936)
the wherewithal to like be able to like learn from those things to like Spielberg um, was and, and being able to like mature in important ways. Um, so yeah, not really anything to do with the film in and of itself, but kind of the Spielberg's life around it, um, that I thought was just kind of a, uh, maybe a cool thing to end with.

Sam (02:23:55.002)
Yeah.

Sam (02:24:11.565)
Yeah.

Sam (02:24:15.967)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:24:18.336)
Yeah. I guess, I guess we do have to talk about where we would have this amongst Spielberg's films, like top tier, middle tier, bottom tier. For me, I think it's top.

Sam (02:24:32.906)
Oh.

Sam (02:24:37.406)
Yeah, I would say it's in the upper half.

Eli Price (02:24:41.216)
Yeah. I still have a decent amount of blind spots, like I said, and kind of like every, every section of his career, I have several blind spots. He has a lot of movies. So yeah.

Sam (02:24:43.182)
for sure.

Sam (02:24:55.754)
Yeah, the guy's prolific. When he, he also started DreamWorks. Was that his company as well? At a certain point, like, yeah, he's just, he's ridiculously like prolific.

Eli Price (02:25:05.46)
Mm hmm. Yep.

Eli Price (02:25:13.656)
Yeah, in the 80s, he started Amblin Entertainment, which was a production company, and DreamWorks, which was the kind of distributing company that he had. So he started producing through Amblin in the 80s. So maybe we'll talk about that when we get there a little bit, maybe hit on that a little bit in those episodes. But.

Sam (02:25:24.798)
Hmm. Yeah.

Sam (02:25:34.288)
Okay.

Eli Price (02:25:43.36)
Yeah, it's, he definitely is prolific. Um, he has a lot of movies. Jaws is, um, is my favorite, I think still. Um, and, uh, you know, you get the popular opinion is probably Raiders of the lost arc, um, but I'm a, I'm a Jaws guy myself. Um, I've seen Raiders, I've seen Raiders enough to know that I like Jaws more.

Sam (02:25:53.834)
Yeah, I feel like it'd have to be.

Sam (02:26:05.854)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:26:12.66)
that's probably never going to change. So, you know, sometimes it's like, oh, let me revisit that and I might like it more, but I've seen it enough that I'm like, no, I'm pretty set in stone.

Sam (02:26:16.341)
Yeah.

Sam (02:26:22.23)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:26:26.48)
Um, but yeah, uh, next week, uh, we're actually, um, gonna be on the show talking with Sam again, we're gonna kind of just do, do just kind of like a short, uh, it'll be a shorter episode. Um, just kind of us riffing on our approach to film viewing. Um, so, uh, look forward to that next week. And then after that, we will be covering Spielberg's.

1941, which I kind of mentioned earlier, I have not seen at this point. And so looking forward to watching it with caution, because I've it seems like it's kind of one of his least liked films and his whole filmography. So, but yeah, I am looking forward to watching it. It's got a pretty stacked cast. So there's at least that to look forward to. But.

Sam (02:27:11.17)
Hehehe

Sam (02:27:20.907)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:27:21.976)
But yeah, looking forward to that episode a couple weeks from now. Um, but Sam, you want to, do you want to plug, uh, where to follow you or, um, the, uh, y'all's new podcast? Um, what's the best place to go for all that?

Sam (02:27:37.002)
Yeah, you can go to thecollision.org, keep up with all the stuff that we're doing there. And the podcast is called Faith in Pop Culture. I host it with Daniel Blackby and it's a lot of fun. And yeah, come hang out and leave us a comment and talk pop culture with us.

Eli Price (02:27:57.868)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Make sure to, um, to go and leave a rating review of this podcast and then go listen to faith and pop culture podcast and leave a rating and review there too. Um, yeah. And I'll, I'll make sure to link all that and the, and the episode notes as well. Um, but, uh, that is all we have for this week. So we're going to head out and get ready to talk about our film approach.

Sam (02:28:08.93)
That'd be great.

Eli Price (02:28:26.724)
and you can hear that next week. But until then, I've been Eli Price for SamCamp. You've been listening to The Establishing Shot. See you next time.

Sam (02:28:35.975)
Bye bye.