Dave Fanning
By the way does anyone want to – there’s a question. Can you just wait till we get the microphone because I think they want to get this kind of stuff on camera?
From the floor
Good evening, Gerry.
Gerry Johnston
How are you?
From the floor
I’d just like to ask you – obviously your work involves huge detail and as you mentioned there’s health and safety aspects. So how much time do you get to prepare? Maybe not just reading the script but before the movie actually starts, how early do you actually get involved?
Gerry Johnston
Well, it could be days, it could be weeks, it could be months. It depends on what the movie is. If it’s a big – usually a big film, you get plenty of warning. I was working on – years ago when I started – I was working six months before we ever seen a camera. So it depends really. The quicker we get the script the better. And break it down and then you start sort of you know, what you need and then you communicate then with maybe people abroad or wherever we are working. So it depends really what the film is about. The likes of Braveheart we didn’t get very much time on that. You know.
And either Saving Private Ryan wasn’t much time on that. I wasn’t privy to the script. I didn’t get the script like six months because I was only – came for the Irish end of it, where we were shooting in Ireland. So I just was involved in the first 20 minutes, half an hour of the movie. I wasn’t involved then after that, you know. So, again, I had the script about four or five weeks before that, you know. So some of the other people, some of the other supervisors maybe had it three or four months before that.
From the floor
Hiya. I just wanted to ask what got you into special effects and did you have to do special training or did you learn as you went along?
Gerry Johnston
Well I actually fell into the business. It all started when I was about nine and 10. I was making up bows and arrows. I used to play cowboys and Indians, made my own arrows. Then I decide that I got fed up with bows and arrows and I started making up my own little explosives. So I started – I used to go off on my own and plant them in trees and blow lumps out of trees. Then after that then, that’s what I used to do and then I went into science class. And that’s when we started to experiment. We used to use gas, magnesium – we used to fill up the balloons with gas and then we’d sort of put a little fuse on them. We’d make up our own little fuse and they’d be floating, just in the science class. Next thing there’d be a big explosion and the science class ceiling was all blackened and that. And then we nearly died because the teacher came in at the time and sort of gave out and ‘How did this happen?’ So eventually anyway, we had to tell him eventually what happened, what we were doing and that. So that was – I started doing that. And then I start then, I went off and I started my first job doing engineering.
And it was like; my father knew I wasn’t happy with what I was doing. So he met a colleague of his and he said he was working on a movie and my father said, ‘I think you should go out to Ardmore Studios’ to see this particular guy. So I went out anyway and he introduced me to a couple of these supervisor-directors at the time, had a meeting with them and they asked me to come back again. And I went back the second time and they said they’d be in contact. And I think that was a few days before. And then on the Monday morning I got a knock on the door, the bell rang and there was a big black limo outside. And there was a guy dressed as a chauffeur and he said ‘Mr Johnston, I’m here to take you to Ardmore.’ And took me to Ardmore and never looked back and I love what I’m doing.
Dave Fanning
That’s an answer. Here’s a question here. Front row.
From the floor
What is the hardest special effect to do?
Gerry Johnston
What would the hardest special effect – well it could be the kettle boiling over at the right time. Or it can be something very dangerous. The most dangerous thing is always when we’re using explosives; whether it’s what we call HE which is a high explosive or low explosives would be anything to do with chemicals and powders. But the hardest thing can be a cake rising at the right time. Like your mother cooking a cake and she sees it rising and she says I must test that or whatever. So that can be sometimes the hardest right on cue, is to have that cake rising. You know, so it depends really.
Dave Fanning
Anybody else got a question? Go ahead.
From the floor
Hiya. Is special effects a hard profession to get into really? Like do you need to build up a lot of experience before directors will like trust you or whatever?
Gerry Johnston
No, it’s not really a hard thing. Nowadays it’s not because you have, you’ve colleges now. To be a special effects person, you’ve got to be creative. It’s hard work and if you have a background of engineering or science or whatever it’s not a bad start. But too, you’ve got to be imaginative and creativity. Be like you’re going to create the illusions because that’s what special effects is about: creating illusions onscreen. That no one is hurt and that no one sees behind the scene, the wires and things like this.
Dave Fanning
Yeah, Gerry, in terms of what you – what Gerry does in this book, seriously, it’s really hard work. It’s not nice work a lot of it, it’s terrible hours underwater. Like there’s one scene you set – I can’t remember what the movie was – and your Morris Minor – there’s a great picture of it in this book – and the Morris Minor’s going over this cliff and it’s on fire. And obviously you only get one shot at that. But then later on it causes debris and you’re making a movie. He’s got to go down. There should have been five guys going down there in wetsuits to get this Morris Minor up. He’s the only guy down there who’s trying to put this big hook on with the waves coming. You realised you didn’t have time because it was going to go out to sea. And he has to do it all by himself. Like, sorry; I’d rather be doing my job than yours.
Gerry Johnston
Yeah.
Dave Fanning
It’s not easy.
Gerry Johnston
It’s not easy, it’s tough. As I said when I was breaking the bottle; you got to be strong, you know. It’s tough because you’re pushed to the limit, what you can do and you’ll always be pushed to the limit by directors that say ‘I want the house to really blow up.’ And you got to sort of say ‘Sorry, this is what you’re going to get’ but giving him the same effect. But they’ll always push that, push you, push you, push you. But like what Dave was saying about the Morris Minor going over the cliff is for I was told, ‘You’re going to have to get away this Morris Minor for environmental purposes.’ You know, so I had to go down underwater with a snorkel and put a massive big hawser around this Morris Minor on my own.
Dave Fanning
A job for five people.
Gerry Johnston
Which was a job for four or five people. And I broke the rule then and I swore I’d never break it again because it could have torn me. Because this trawler was above the surface and I was diving. I had no aqualung and I was diving down and I had this – it nearly killed me to get it down. But we got it up. I’d never do it again.
Dave Fanning
But to be really cruel about it, one of the worst things is that a lot of these guys don’t care too much about you and with all due respect, they just want the shot, they want you to get paid whatever way you’re meant to get paid but do what you’re told and get it done. It’s not the nicest gig in terms of the way you’ve been treated by a lot of people.
Gerry Johnston
No, you’re only, you’re like, you’re only a number.
Dave Fanning
Yeah. Exactly.
Gerry Johnston
You know. And if someone gets killed, it’s you know, ‘Oh, very sorry, can we get (push them asunder) can we get on with the shoot?’ That’s the way it’s gone. It’s like; it’s run by accountants and insurance people now. And that’s what sort of – the niceness, a lot of the niceness has gone out of the movie business.
Dave Fanning
That’s a really terrible answer. Is there not a good thing in the book?
Gerry Johnston
Yeah, there is.
Dave Fanning
There’s an awful lot of exciting things about it too. Jeepers, it’s a great gig. There was one over, was there, no? Yeah, have we got a microphone there, yeah?
From the floor
Gerry, just a couple of questions kind of linked. Just interested in hearing what you want to do next because you were saying you wanted to go into maybe, was it directing or producing? And then also, kind of linked onto that; is there any advice you could give say you younger film makers perhaps working in low budget features or no budget features in relation to special effects?
Gerry Johnston
Well, you know for young directors and that there’s many, many books on special effects now and there’s also on the Internet. So, like I mean, many’s the time directors or producers rang me and said ‘Look, we’re thinking of doing a movie. We’re not too sure how to do these shots.’ Or I might get a call from a writer saying, ‘I don’t know how to put this in. What do you think is the best thing to do and how do you go about it to get it into the script?’ And a lot of producers and directors up and coming; they’ve maybe gone through college and they feel like - oh well we know how to do this and everything like that. But when it’s – it’s totally different when you get on the stage as they say, it’s a totally different thing what you learn in school and classes and colleges. When you come out in the real world it’s a totally different thing. What I think is, it’s always good not to be ‘Well I know it all’ and the producer, director and that sort of you know, don’t be afraid to ask people that’s in the business. You know and that’s what I’d say to anyone; young film directors or producers coming up is; don’t be afraid to ask questions. Because you know, it’s simple enough.
Dave Fanning
You sound like you’re making something and you’ve been as far as the joke shop and that’s it. Yeah, I know it well. Who’s – sorry, have you got a microphone? Oh, he does. Good man yourself. Anybody else want to ask a question by the way? Yeah, there’s a few over here. Yeah, go ahead.
From the floor
Hi. What do you think was the best stunt that you did?
Dave Fanning
The best stunt that you did.
Gerry Johnston
The best film I did?
Dave Fanning
No, the best stunt that you did. The best thing you did in the movie, the one you’re most proud of.
Gerry Johnston
Well I don’t do stunts. I do the special effects but I make, sometimes I make the stunt guys look good because I create the fire around them and throw them in the air.
Dave Fanning
What was the favourite one? Would there be one say – look I did all that, he wouldn’t have been able to fall that way or die that way or whatever.
Gerry Johnston
Well it was a shot we did in the – we did a shot like for instance in the Great Train Robbery, The First Great Train Robbery and the stunt coordinator, he jumped the wrong way. He should have jumped when the train is going in that direction he should have jumped that way. But of course he jumped that way and he broke his shoulder and arms and everything like that. That was –
Dave Fanning
What was so great about that?
Gerry Johnston
No, I’m just saying to her it was, that was no one particularly liked this particular guy and it was a good thing to happen. But, and I think Dave, you maybe met him at the time. But I think one of my favourites was when I worked with Pierce Brosnan the first time was I blew up a gunpowder factory, one of the biggest in America. And I achieved about how it looked and no one was hurt, you know. And that was a seven or eight storey big factory.
Dave Fanning
What’s the movie?
Gerry Johnston
It was Pierce Brosnan’s first movie, it was called Manions of America and that was the first time. Pierce then became famous. He then went off to America and then after that he did Remington Steele.
Dave Fanning
Can I just say something on that level too about somebody becoming famous first? You did a small movie in County Kerry which I think you got yourself involved in too. To kind of answer your question earlier on about what you’re going to do next. You’re going to get into directing or get into making movies on a different level than what you’re doing now. And you made a thing called Drinking Crude and it didn’t make it, it didn’t do anything, it wasn’t successful as such, right? But it was the first movie ever that Colin Farrell was in.
Gerry Johnston
Yeah that was his first. We did that back in – we shot it back in 1996. We bought and robbed, borrowed and everything to make the movie. It was in 84, we shot it in super 60 and we blew it up onto 35. And main actor was Andrew Scott and Eva Birthistle who’s, they’re doing very well today. And we had this part, this guy playing a cameo – Colin Farrell. And I wanted the director to maybe use him as the lead part but the director at the time thought that no, that we use Andrew Scott at the time. And I kept saying to him ‘No, why not use this guy?’ and he said no. But we only had him in about 10 minutes and then we know what happened after that. Colin Farrell became famous. But at the time we made the movie for I think at the time for a grant from the Film Board and we made it for about 200,000. But it got great ratings at the time and thankful to Dave here gave us two reviews on television and gave it rave reviews.
Dave Fanning
I enjoyed it.
Gerry Johnston
We got a few little sales out of it but we hadn’t got the money to push it and to promote the movie. And we had a particular friend of mine who never had a feature before and he asked me to give it to him and I gave it to him but he was out of his league at the time and he hadn’t got the resources to do it. And I often get an enquiry about, ‘What are you going to do with this movie?’ So we were asked there recently would we go back and re-shoot it and put Colin Farrell – but you couldn’t do that because he was only about 20 odd at the time, you know he was very young.
Dave Fanning
12 years ago.
Gerry Johnston
12 years ago, yeah.
Dave Fanning
A question there, yeah?
From the floor
Just, in the film industry in general, being on set for actors and directors and producers and special effects. Inevitably there’s going to be dates pushed back and that. Is it true that it’s an area you can’t afford to be sensitive in?
Gerry Johnston
So your question basically is?
From the floor
Sorry, in the film industry there’s inevitably dates have to be pushed back and extend the deadlines. Is it true that it’s an area in general that you can’t afford to be sensitive in with tensions and that?
Gerry Johnston
You mean, well it depends really. As for the actors, to push days back and your other question is regards push back effects?
From the floor
Yeah, datelines inevitably having to be extended and that and then tensions will inevitably rise at some point, I mean is it you can’t afford to be sensitive to criticism and –
Gerry Johnston
Well maybe you’re answering your question. I’m not too sure this is the answer but I mean as regards the effects; most of the effects is always the end of the day. They always call you out very early in the morning but you know and then they want either the actor to survive or the set to stay up. Because at the end of the day it might be blowing the set up or whatever it is so they want to get everything else shot. It’s often they extend the day and that then sort of causes maybe budget constraints for the production company and that because then they have to – there is a certain time, you only get maybe a tenhour day. If you start going over that, then you’re into overtime, you might have to pay certain people double time and into the next day and that. But yes, it’s often pushed back. Maybe some of the effects is pushed back the following day or that but it’s all sort of what’s happening on the day really. Does that answer your question?
From the floor
I just wanted to know have the technological advances over the last few years made your job harder or easier? Like, the green screens and the computerisation of effects. Has it made your job easier or harder?
Gerry Johnston
You mean the computergenerated effects?
From the floor
Yeah.
Gerry Johnston
Well I don’t do computer, I do the physical side.
Dave Fanning
Oh you mentioned the dirty word there.
Gerry Johnston
Yeah, like I mean my colleagues and that and actors we seem to be going back to what happens on the set. There’s a place for computergenerated effects still and green screen but we tend to be sort of going back. Directors now want to go back because first of all, the actors and the actresses on the set and if there’s action they feel part of it and the movement and everything like that. When you’re shooting on green screen or whatever is for computer generated thing, the actors and actresses feel the fun is gone out of it. Or they’re, what are they supposed to be doing? There’s no one around them and they don’t know what’s going on when it gets into the computer generated stuff. So, they prefer working onset and there’s communication with the crews and rapport and that so.
Dave Fanning
And there is the line on the screen there. It’s the very last line in the whole book where you say, ‘My dreams of adventure had been fulfilled. Computer generation generated fires, winds, explosions, still looked fake. But before technology catches up, I would like to echo one of Hollywood’s greats who paid tribute to the work of the special effects professionals. He said “The audience is treated to the results but I have smelled the cordite, seen the hidden wires and experienced the meticulous and personal care for the safety of everybody without compromising the finished effect.” Thank you Stephen Spielberg.’ So you have Stephen Spielberg and a few others. As I said at the very beginning, it’s coming back, isn’t it?
Gerry Johnston
It’s coming back yeah.
Dave Fanning
Yeah, the real deal.
Gerry Johnston
I mean even Spielberg is. Okay, he’s going back. He used to use a lot of CGI himself and that. He’s going back to now. I mean most of – a lot of directors and production companies and some of the big moguls in Hollywood; they’re all going back to it as well. You know?
Dave Fanning
Wasn’t there a question up there? There you go, yeah.
From the floor
Hi, how’s it going? You said that insurance and the insurance industry are kind of taking the fun out of it. Well, maybe not the fun but they’re putting more restrictions. Do you think that preventing the creativity that could be there?
Gerry Johnston
Sorry?
From the floor
Do you think the whole insurance industry and the whole idea that it is being turned over to accountants and people that are sitting in an office looking at numbers and looking at risk are actually taking out the creativity that used to exist?
Dave Fanning
Yeah it’s all gone very PC and nanny state and all that.
Gerry Johnston
Yeah, it’s like, if you notice now, it’s health and safety plays a huge part in every industry and it has restricted a lot. I’m not saying it’s restricted but there’s more paperwork, there’s more safety aspects. I mean when I started in it there was okay if we were blowing up some place we had a nurse on set or you might have an ambulance. Nowadays you’ve got to take into consideration and it’s part of your call because you see you have to do risk assessments for every time you’re going out nearly now. And this is more paperwork and paperwork and paperwork and that. And also as well, as regards like, you were saying accountants. I mean at the end of the day, most producers - I mean I wore the hat myself as a producer – the end of the day, the cost factor.
But you’re caught between two stools because the director might say, ‘I want a jumbo jet to blow up’ or ‘I want two. I want just one in case we don’t get the first shot.’ So then I’ve to go back and I’ve to talk to the production accountant, the producers and they say ‘No. We’ve no money, you’re not getting that.’ You know so I’ve to go back and tell the director. He knows he’s not getting it and then you’ve to go back and say you can’t. So you see you’re caught between two people here: the production area and the creativity. So what often happens at the end of the day, is a lot of effects, imagination, the illusions are put out because the producer will say ‘Well okay, you’re the accountant’ and the accountant will just slash, slash, slash, slash. So at the end of the day, sort of, if you can cut other corners that mightn’t be relevant to the movie, do it that way. But don’t sort of cut what the director wants and what’s good for the movie, you know?
Dave Fanning
Okay, we’ll take one more maybe if there’s any more. No I don’t see any. Here’s one here if we can get a mic down. Although you could shout if you like because he could certainly hear you.
From the floor
I was basically wondering, throughout your career, which stunt or which film would you be most proud of having been working on?
Gerry Johnston
Well there’s a lot of them, it’s very difficult to say. But I suppose the one I had feeling for because I was there, lived it and everything like that and I felt I was in war with Saving Private Ryan. You know, the rest were movies as such but when you have people crying behind you and you’ve people sniffing and everything.
Dave Fanning
So you’re talking about the impact on Curacao Beach as opposed to the impact in the cinemas. While you were making it.
Gerry Johnston
While I was making it yeah, I felt that was my favourite movie that I worked on that I felt I was there and looking at the screen I was crying nearly behind the scenes, you know?
Dave Fanning
Alright, anybody else or will we leave it at that?
From the floor
Yeah, just a quick comment. The explosion at the very beginning of In the Name of the Father was one of the most stunning things I’ve seen. It’s not a question, I’ll just tell you. You’re sitting up there watching it and my God.
Dave Fanning
That’s the pub in Guildford is it?
From the floor
Yeah, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ll never forget it.
Dave Fanning
Really powerful.
Gerry Johnston
Yeah, see again, you know as you build a set that will blow out. But sometimes we have to blow out – there’s a pub there but then we have to put a false set in front of it and blow it out. You know, it’s within the landscape of that. But we use, it depends really you know, it’s nice for us if we can get a derelict building. We can really go to town on it then, we can do what we like, you know? If it’s a set that’s built and we have to have it next day, well then we have to compromise to a certain extent. And then we might have a set that’s out in the wilderness that we could just blow the whole thing up. And it doesn’t have to be concrete, there’s sort of stuff we can make up that looks like concrete. The whole set can either disintegrate or a wall blown out. You know so, it depends on what the film is about, you know, what it is.
From the floor
Can I just ask you, if you do your pyrotechnics and then the director says whatever, go or whatever they say, and then it goes wrong and the set has blown up and gone on fire.
Gerry Johnston
Sorry, just go back on that again.
From the floor
You know if you’re doing your pyrotechnics and you’re blowing something up?
Gerry Johnston
Yeah.
From the floor
And they say ‘Go ahead’ and you do your job and then they say it wasn’t quite right, you know?
Gerry Johnston
Wasn’t what you wanted?
From the floor
What happens then if it’s blown up?
Gerry Johnston
Well, either that or they go and build another set or another, whatever it is. But normally what I’d do – and this is what I always make it my business if I can because if I’m working with the art department, we normally work through art department because we come in: the makeup, the wardrobe, the special effects and everything comes under the umbrella of the art department. And the production designer, the art director, myself have an idea how this should look but then the director might have a different concept of how they want it. So I always try and make it my business to go to the director to make sure that this is what they want. And you know I’ve never had any problem with that. You know? It’s always good because if I had went with what the art director said, that’s not what the director wanted. You know, so I’ll always try and go – I’ll say to the art department ‘I’m going to talk to the director about it’ because I always like to sort of find out what way they want it, their feeling, what they want to see and what if I can help them. And then I might say ‘Listen, my suggestion would be’ you know, da, da, a compromise for them and they feel happy with that.
Dave Fanning
Alright folks, Lights, Camera, Dynamite. Let’s hear it for Gerry Johnston.
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