FAST & FURIOUS: THE LOST FOOTAGE

[Music] [Music] [Music] all right people welcome back to another episode this week I have a very special treat for you for those of you who don't know who this is this is David martyr David martyr was my boss on the first movie and the second movie David spent about 40 or 50 years in the industry he's worked on many many many many many many motion pictures and he's written a book called it takes more than a doughnut to make a movie and we'll talk about that a little while first David why don't we talk about how you and I met what started this whole thing oh well they hired me to do some car movie called the fast and the fierce at the time it was called redline and it was a major car motion picture and they had no money like how much there's no money they wanted to make it for 25 million dollars back then just a walk and talk a studio picture was 40 50 million and so I realized that the only way we can get this movie made is to get into that world so I went to a newsstand and picked up I think was super Street or some magazine and I'm flipping through it and I see an ad oh let me regress a little bit they handed me a picture of a yellow Supra and they said wow this is the type of cars we want so armed with this picture of the yellow super I went to the newsstands magazine flipped through and I saw an ad for nitro which is I believe was national import racing associate exactly and lo and behold the picture of the yellow Supra was in the ad and there was a phone number so I called the phone number which led to your office at Peterson publishing and that's how we met right and then you came up to my office I came up you're off as I walked through the door in your office there's the yellow super a picture of it on the wall and you know the planets aligned because you own the car we had actually met once before that though as I recall it or do I have the sequence backwards because I think we met at a Manhattan Beach car show mahat in Beach California car show I was standing there with the yellow super and you came by and asked some questions about the show and then it was after that that because apparently you were doing research for the movie uh yeah I had gone through a few car shows to take a you know to kick the tires to see what we remember you cuz you were wearing a Hawaiian print shirt yeah well that was a standard beautiful yeah yeah that's the Cuddy rear trademark yeah that's it so then that I don't know not sure how much time passed but I also remember the conversation we had up at Delmonico's we went to lunch one day hand me a script say can you read this because it was right after that meeting at Peterson right you said read the script and I got on a plane to go to an IRA event and I was reading this and I was kind of chuckling at some of the the the dialogue and so forth because it's clear they had done some research but they had a few things kind of backwards and so forth but they were real real close and I'm reading this and going if they can pull this off this is going to be pretty cool and then of course we did the casting up at Universal oh yeah that one of the problems I had is they wouldn't ok spending any money till we got it down to the 25 million dollar budget which was impossible to do so somebody must have had a meeting with somebody and decided that we can't do that they said spend some money and I realized the timeframe I didn't have enough time to build the cars so what we had to do is get already built cars and make them our actor cars and the ones we see the actors driving around it and replicate those cheaply for stunt cars so I think you set up a rice rocket show-and-tell for rice Rockets still called it back then that's what's in the script right no one tells ya the show-and-tell so I mean it was like 70 rice Rockets driving into Universal Studios and the place went nuts but yeah and then they then the director Rob Cohn when he picked he picked the aurochs and for vini and the Eclipse and the VW and once we had picked all those cars to make deals with the owners to use them and we went well this is unusual renting here old cars some owners that's not the way it was done I didn't learn that until after my involvement with the movie when they wanted when a motion picture studio was making a movie didn't they just buy and build the cars they did if we had any time okay because you got to remember from the time that they said yeah start spending money to the time we started filming was like three weeks so then talk about the challenges at the picture car warehouse remember ready Paul right right so you would say you had done business with Eddie before I have done business with any before I knew Eddie for 25 years and I needed a facility that could crank the stuff out Eddie had built a bunch of cars for me in the past and I walked in to Eddie's and I said hey we got this thing and you know we just can't we just got going so that became the picture car warehouse that that's where we manufactured the stuff right right so talk to me about some of the challenges of building the replicas because you had the hero car which had from the most part fully functioning gauges and nitrous systems and crazy audio/video systems in some cases nitrous systems big breaks etcetera etcetera so right so we had to build stunt cars because for every car you see in that movie you have to have five of them because especially with the stunt sequences so we there's no way we could you know build hundred-thousand-dollar cars because some of those cars weird but we're purchasing them for eight nine thousand dollars and to replicate them we vacuformed dashes to match we the some of the instrument gauge you know pods right vacuform those photographed dials cut them out glue them up there some of the cars for the interiors if like the VW had really specific seats you need just caps that fit over the the caps in the cars so when the car went flying by a camera you couldn't tell me from the room yeah and then of course we talk about racehorses to jump ahead a little bit race words we were just talking about that at lunch and I'm kind of told the story but the way you would embellish it until go ahead and tell that part of the story well we had to we had to film all the actors inside the cars and it takes like forever to put him in the car they get and and we had these were moving so they were on a trailer so what we did is we took a Honda Civic and say like the Eclipse which was Green we painted green appliques and velcro on the doors so when the camera shot through it because the camera has no depth perception so with the camera shot through all we saw was part of the door and the door frame so we just made a thin plastic applique with velcro painted it green put it on there and then whatever we saw inside the car like a gauge or a dash we just kind of put it up there and we film it so and then when we got into the next car we did the same thing different color applique different headrests different this difference that so instead of taking two and a half days to film all the people in the cars we filmed that in about four hours so the way you explained it to me at lunch was like when we were doing the race we're seeing Johnny Tran versus the VW Jetta well mounting the car in a trailer we're talking about the McRib shells right so I've got a shell of a Honda Civic okay and then what we do is to make it look like it's an s2000 or an eclipse or a Jetta we just put the right color of the exterior cars panels on there like there's an actual photograph I have a black Mick rigged Civic with a white applique on the door to make it look like the Jetta right and then of course the secret is out been out now for some time that we've used a red steering wheel cover what you got from Pep Boys right that the seats were fake you could see you if you look behind Jessi's ahead you can see that it's a four-door Civic and you can even see the wing that was on the Civic through the shot and the same thing on the s2000 right we use one card everybody one McRib car to film everything and you just pop people in and out same thing with when you did the Eclipse we actually had a shell for the Eclipse because they using that for the sliding chase right police chase yabba-dabba-doo floors and remember the floor pan dropping out of the car remember oh god that was an argument it's in the script there tend to scratch it since but when people go well they wouldn't do that even even today a friend's family and what have you it will Ord my wife we're watching television and well they wouldn't do that why do they do that it's cuz it's in the script you know it just it has to be entertaining yeah so it's not based on reality of I'm telling that story for 18 years because it used to be getting hate emails why do they do this that's not real yeah we know it's not real but you carved people who really know about cars were not the target audience oh it's the people that didn't know it about cars and a people yeah because I used to get the I would get the same question I'd be on a plane flying somewhere and I'd be reading a script because I was going to location and somebody in the seat next to me we'd get in a conversation and and they would go well you know you guys don't make movies like you used to and they might have enough and the thing about it is is making movies is a commercial venture they make it to make money yeah that's it and so I think you brought up a good point on the original fast and furious it did like 40 million dollars in the first weekend which was astronomical but it wasn't it wasn't 20,000 people spending $2 to go in the movie it was 10,000 kids going to see it 10 times and you know so it's a it's a money-making operation sure and as well as should be I mean I don't know any companies and business to lose money but you know it we were talking about earlier to become this nostalgia now because the movies of now in the franchise have deviated so far from the original storyline but they're making way more money which we get but the nostalgia I mean that that race for example between the super and the charger it's a classic I mean we're talking like American Graffiti kind of classic because you've got the right you know the guys who drive the ricer cars as people call them with a JDM to Japanese style cars the tuner cars and then the muscle car guys cuz those guys fuckin hate each other oh yeah they did for a long long they didn't mix car shows for many many years now it's been a blending but back then was a oh my god a Chargers gonna smoke that thing and I did a video on that we talked about that a little bit at lunch but talk a little bit about what you know about the charger in case I've missed anything well the charger as I said we have no money we had no money for this so when we got we bought the Chargers the one seen in Vin's garage where we see the hood off yeah I rented that engine yeah Chuck Chuck Nelson racing engines was that the guy yeah was it yeah we just put it in for one shot and as soon as they said cut it went back and just the stock the stock engine was in it to make everything to make everything match the big chrome air intake on top that was just bolted on the hood some of the close ups we ran a we ran a cable from the butterflies to the gas pedal to make to make it work for ya to work but most of it not in fact there's an interesting thing when the when the charger and the super high has their big race and the charger does the barrel roll when it landed it land the front end matched and the hook came up and you could see was just a stock engine underneath and I'm going oh no man we got to reshoot it but the movie gods were with me the camera angles we didn't see that I didn't see so we didn't have to redo it it was cheap a lot of people don't know that the train was not actually coming when they actually did the jump there was no train coming no no that was added in right it's all done with plate shots and because they didn't have any real CGI in their CG in that movie no that movie that movie you know most of you know all of the stunts were practical stunts and as we've talked about lunch the the opening sequence as where the Civic's don't want the Civic's going under the trailer oh that was a great story tell that story oh yeah so as I said we had no time to do this so I I went to a big outfit and they raised the trailer right right because they in order for a car to go we would have to raise it too right to get it and and not only that if you look really hard at that everything that's hanging under like the fifth wheel plates and stuff been taken off the bottom of the trailer so it's just flat so we're we're out getting ready to film that and you know everything was rush rush rush rush and I realized right before they roll the camera that I never did really Pacific under that I just I just said yeah raise it to this faith so you're saying that you didn't know if it was gonna clear no adding complexity to that was that when I have to go back and look at the sinks I don't remember off the top of my head but one of the cars actually had a proper Sun or if the we you know we Bob's I think was six or seven civics a figure but one of them actually has a sunroof and the Sun roofs on those cars don't retract into the into the into the bodywork they come up an angle so if you had been I'm now I'm really curious I got a back and look was the card that the car have a sunroof that wanted me I think that was Letty's card I don't think it had a sunroof yes okay yeah but yeah so you know I was the most surprised person on the set when that happens he went under there like one because it dawned on me I was so busy on that show as you can imagine with all the craziness going on and just when they were lining this thing up to do it it dawned on me you know we never drove a cific under that said I'm not sure clear oh my god and then supras know I got to tell we have talked a little bit about that so much Mike he lifts shows eight supras one was a buck we know that one was the wrecked car right so that was - we had mine plus three others that I saw what's missing there was I got one from I forget the guys name in Texas that guy no he's he's a big racer he goes a pipe Rhys Millen Rhys Millen Rhys Millen I rented one from him because we needed the right one there when they were building the Supra we needed the wreck one right on the top on the tow truck on the tow truck we needed one I was gutted gutted no engine in it right coming back then we needed one then we needed one that was kind of in progress in progress and so I rented one from Rhys Millen for the in progress one and then we gave it back to him okay that now it makes sense okay because that one shows because I can see how much they paid for each of the cars right so yeah obviously they didn't buy the car for that amount of money right one was given to us for free or loan to us for free and two others looked to be rentals and that kind of thing but I don't remember seeing those cars because I never came to the picture car warehouse while I was at the picture car warehouse yeah we have we yeah we had so much stuff at the picture car warehouse I don't remember all of it yeah and the cars were in there out they were transient all the time yeah well and then a lot of them the cars had to go to special effects department which was in North Hollywood right now Segundo so we were always flipping cars from from El Segundo to North Hollywood and because the silver buck car I never saw it the car that was on the pneumatic never saw the car never ever saw the car yeah it was all green screen blue screen stuff mm-hmm never saw the car so that part was injured all right so another question I have for you when I got involved I was a novice I knew very little about motion pictures I knew to make this movie that I was gonna have to call in favors from the people I knew at these companies you know we had affiliations through the naira racing series in Super Street and they call them up and say hey I need 20 nitrous bottles we're making a film called redline and I'm like what the fuck yeah right who cares straight-to-dvd or what at that time nobody knew what was gonna happen with the film right so that's not normally the way it's done it's done through a paid product placement can you talk a little bit about that yeah sure one of the one of the most expensive type movies you can make as a car movie you know because you know your your cars are you know those cars are a hundred thousand dollars apiece so and we had no money so I realized the only way we can make those money is if I got product placement parts so you threw your ear contacts with the aftermarket people I went and kind of went and sold them a bill of goods if youth supply tires and wheels and body kits and what have you what have you the only thing I could offer them was to put their company logo on the side of the car right must have denna I must have talked really well because the parts started coming in funny part about that is when we designed the cars the production designer Vladimir Calvin Oski Kalinowski yeah Kalinowski and Rob Cohen the director they picked the color of the car and the graphics and other than that we built the cars with what I could promote yeah so a lot of times the cars roll out into the set and the director would look at it and it goes how come it has those wheels I said because I can get them for free so oh this look great yeah yeah there you go yeah and so but I think we talked after the show and their investment the manufacturers investment really paid off for him it did you covered it in your book I covered it in my book I covered it in my book you know Sparco sales were up fifteen hundred percent nitrous oxides systems were fifty nine percent whatever the numbers were the numbers are in my book but still it was a good thing for them because it taught me a very valuable lesson if people see it on camera they're gonna buy it you know if it's out of some kind of celebrity or an implied endorsement I guess that's why Nike you know advertises with right but big celebrities and so forth so it makes sense but it was very interesting when we're putting these decals on the card which would have fit on the carbons anyway because everybody everybody in the tuner scene they put sponsor logos on their cars too so it was kind of fitness thing but the graphics were a bone of contention for a lot of people I try and explain it I'm gonna get your impression of second but to explain it just one more time the graphic people don't understand what the art department went through to do these graphics we had we knew we were gonna have 300 cars on set that all up to a certain way and all the graphics were bubbles or splashes or flames or tribal or whatever right they had to come up with something other than that so toreally was brought in Detroit Lee's done motorcycle apparel and a bunch of other things for many years ago had well-known artists and so they had to come up with theme graphics so I explained that in previous videos but what was your impression of the graphics well the graphics you know the graphics were from the art department the director you gotta remember the people that are designing this or not car people right you know it's Rob Cohen who's the director and you know one time Rob Ram Motown Records so and Vladimir they're designing it for the aesthetic look of the ring and it and with a film the rat it has to stand out so as soon as you see the car fly by and you see the graphic you understand what it is you got a guest art we got a guest start she's wearing her 4th of July outfit here you know I had a thing in suits averse a little bit but it's a car movie two days of thunder thunder thunder movie yeah apartment we all remember that movie oh yeah the rental car scene was my favorite oh yeah I still have whip marks on my back from that Joe and you know and I just stopped seeing the therapist last week but Tony Scott make a lot of story short he we had a we had a product placement deal with General Motors and the director Tony Scott said I'm not letting those beat counters tell me what type of car to use and so he picked he finally picked under a lot of pressure a couple of luminous mm-hmm and he wanted one paint at dark blue and one painted marine maroon duck maroon and I said you know and these are the cars that are running down the beach and I've kind of put my two cents and said you'll never tell the difference between the cars you know they're gonna look the same and sure enough Tony said no that's we get out there yeah and so then we won't used a white Ford Taurus which I go into detail in my book but it was just interesting you got to pick up the book if you haven't if you haven't read the story it's a great story yeah so but what getting back to the graphics you have to be able tell what card is and that's the easiest way it's like putting you know a mark on it they were actually quite bringing about it because as I was telling you at lunch so many people from around the world have copied the graphics I'm seeing super graphics on cars that are not even Toyotas I'm seeing the clips graphics on cars that are not even Mitsubishi so it resonated around the world and granted the rest of the world wants what's what it's human nature I think you want what you can't have America that's why Americans like German cars and and Italian women or whatever the case may be but you want what you can't have and so there was sheer brilliance in that because if they were really bad I mean if they were really bad and just objectively then nobody would want it but there was another piece of brilliance that they used I think it was Erickson Gore who was the DP on the picture right here in court yeah gore sorry I keep seeing core Erickson they came up with a saturated look where they put a warrant like basically warming filters on everything and it what happened what they never realized was gonna happen was that people are trying to replicate these cars can't figure out the fucking colors because with the warming filters over everything looks different they're going out buying Kawasaki green to repaint the Eclipse and say what looks different than it did in the film well well yeah because you know the DP before you ever start shooting you have your color palette these are the colors you can use in the show and a lot of times you know the background is kind of a mutiny holler so your your principles pop out and so yeah that that was that was all planned yeah there was brilliance in that Abe John I was interviewing John lap at the owner of the Eclipse he said you know they took the car they took that car when it was silvered he said you can paint it any color but Green two weeks later he sees the card is fucking green but he kept it like that until he sold it yes well you know green is silver in a some other language yeah but yeah all the cars are primary colors you had the red car the orange car the green car you have me as Integra which was I got aqua blue green and then of course the villain cars had to be black that's just what you do with villain cars and so forth right there were running out of colors well you know the the civics I remember we went through all kinds of stuff until we found till we found front clips that kind of looked like big mouth bass yeah wings West yes Gatti's company yeah Scotty's coming right and and we with it just to give him that nasty look yep that's that was okay yeah because the you know the wing is wet stuff it became very very popular after that if you could probably pitch everything didn't of course not a lot of those companies are out of business so you know change everything everything changes everything so why don't we switch gears and talk about 2 fast 2 furious yeah so 2 fast 2 furious I had just about wrapped up doing my services to Universal they had me on promotional tours with Paul and the doin international with the DVD home theater and the ad ours and all that kind of stuff so by the time that paycheck ran out I get a call from David martyr David martyr calls me up and says are you ready were they gonna do another one hung up and so we go up to I get called into a meeting with Scott Stuber singleton is sitting down for me I think Ted Moser was there that was that was there you were sitting next to me on this side he was singleton was it was it was the marketing people yeah and Scott Stuber the VP of the studio at the time so we're going through their car lists just like we always do what kind of cars we're gonna use and they start talking about it neon SRT 4 and of course I lose my shit and there was a great scene and it was what was in that movie Red October James Joel Jones were Alec Baldwin is talking he just goes off on a tangent and James Earl Jones grabs Alec Baldwin's wrist like shut the fuck up you did the exact same thing about never for get it I'm sure I remember if they were they asked you what I think was singleton asked you we didn't thought about it he says like putting lipstick on a pig it's still a pig and the marketing people has set up this like five million dollar promotional deal and and they're freaking out and you know but the singletons goes how did he put it I don't want no booty I shit in my movie but this is booty I need to know yeah exactly exactly I love that guy did a tribute to him on my Instagram yes he was very nice guy to me trace man I'm nobody and he treated me like somebody and I appreciated that I'm so good guys good guy so then we get into making this this fucking thing so we start off at the picture car warehouse and in El Segundo again thanks to Eddie Paul well the thing is they're gonna film in Miami but all the decision makers are in LA so it makes no sense to go to Miami building cars because you don't know what you're building and that movie on the first Fast and Furious we had no money and as I said earlier we build the cars with what I could promote the second one because the first one was such a hit now it was designed by committee so you know you they had seven people seven people trying to make decisions about these cars never send someone that yeah you know I mean it's hard enough to get seven people to agree where to go to lunch no less what a color of a car is I think we painted a hundred and twenty-five paint chips to pick colors for cars couldn't get decisions so anyhow we started we started building the cars in El Segundo and then we just shipped them to Florida when when all the decision makers went to Miami that's when we opened an operation in Miami yeah so I have footage of that I have picture of you walking through there with Keith Brian burns you remember Keaney so I actually have a booklet of all the pictures of some of the sketches at all these talented young artists have done it and I appreciate what they did I looked up Keith brennenburg the guy's a talented designer and set designer and all that guy's got a great credentials but he flat-out told me he said look I don't like cars and cars aren't appliances to me so this is we're doing this entirely from an artistic point of view and I said okay or I just but like you said acceptance no resistance non judgement there you go so and the interesting Keith Brian burns story which it have in the book guys better buy the book Keith on the the car that Sookie no Tyrese Tyrese is come oh yes yeah it's hi Reese's car Keith designs a purple car with gold suede interior okay against you know I was adamant you don't want to do this but no I'm gonna do that well if anybody ever owned suede jacket or a sweet pair of shoes you know if you look at it it's stained it's stains when you after about three days of stunt guy is camera guy as grips and everybody else climbing in and out of these cars the interior of that suede interior looked like the bottom of a birdcage you know it just it was horrible then Therese comes out there looks at the car I remember this yeah looks at the car and he goes I need driving that it's a freaking Laker car it was purple and gold it's exactly what he said that's exactly what he says exactly what he said and he whips out this magazine as this car magazine and there's a there's a a car with this graphic design it was a silver car with graphics and down the side and a beautiful car and he says that's what I want to drive right so there's more to the story but go on okay so and he says I'm not driving that car I want that car well that according to the article there was a shop in Fort Myer Florida which is on the other side of Florida right - so I called these guys I what I needed and that the kicker is and you got to do it in four days you know four cars in four days you know it's a nice point the nice part about making movies is I don't care what it costs I need it done right you know and if you work 24 hours a day then you work for hours with 20 guys doesn't write the check I just write the check we strip out the interiors of these things and we send these to Fort Myer put them on a car carrier send them over there take the interiors and now we have to you know the color change I think it was six cars the color changed on six cars when you think about it you got to change the dashes you got to change you know everything inside go all the plastic for the seat hardware and all that all that stuff's all got to be painted the headliners there's an outfit called kam shamrock auto upholstery little little company who'd walk in there there we go all this we needed all this color and I need it in four days and they look at me like I was from outer space and they did it they did it say so the car was it wasn't even really gold David had pictures of this it had a spiderweb graphic on it that they come up with this black with this dots like a spiderweb right and it looked like something a 12 year old would do right it didn't look it didn't look the part but the car they found you're right was in Fort Myers Florida it was based off a blue theme with some purple but mainly blue and silver right that car still floating around and kind of had the Lamborghini door is that when I put all that that car is still floating around by the way so that's the car they copied so everything you're saying is exactly matches my memory and the stories that have been floating around on the Internet and then when shamrock did the cars they had like you said removed it that shitty yellow that was in there and did the great but sanding down and painting the - taking the whole dash out and doing that I don't think people appreciate the amount of work that went into doing that they were they worked around the clock and it's a it was a mom-and-pop operation and they did a great job it was actually really good interior work yeah in fact they they were hit they hit some they were hitting a financial a rough spot if their business had gone down and but they got an infusion of movie they did this the super interiors for us to the leather the two told butterscotch gold they did all yes yeah yeah and then Sookie's car they did the the pink bathroom carpet and that thing which faded that got cars up at Petersen Automotive Museum now the actual hero one car oh really RJ's old car and it's all faded it's almost white gray from because it's not UV protected it what I read to be like that kind of stuff and they did the copies of my skyline that the interiors as well oh yeah they did all the interiors in fact on their website they have a whole page of all Fast and Furious 2 interiors they did yeah they have an Instagram but they're not very active on this so but I've reached out to them when we've kind of tagged each other back and forth yeah so yeah we definitely added a lot of money to the local economy oh yeah so we were they were filming what was that movie Will Smith and the other guy bad boys - down in South Florida the same time when we were down there so the freeways were closed a lot oh yeah the people were pissing and moaning about that but so there was a lot of shit going on in Florida but it was apparently people have been a lot of people were involved that we didn't know were involved being around the scenery and being around said cuz I keep getting pictures from people who were on set the weren't supposed to be taking pictures oh yeah anything that well you know just the freeway chase stuff you know that was a highway from homestead coming up which we closed down funny funny story about that we needed a police cars so Mike price goes to the city of you know goes to the city and goes Miami and says gee we need some police guy you know it's cut it's kind of like making a movie it's it's a lot of lucky and it's a lot of timing the city of Miami just was turning over their fleet of police cars and we went and normally they auction of mouths and they have it a public option and so we went and I said well what's the best price you can again they said well you know at auction this will go for you know $9,000 and we go good well thirty of them a $9,000 and they went dun-dun-dun so we got all X City Miami police cars and as we're we're bringing them in and you know we have the mechanics going through the you know the brakes right of course you know because they're using it for stunts and doing what we're finding bullets in the back guns all kinds of crap but there's the seats oh my god you know and it was a feet so some guy comes walking in my office with a 38 look at I sound like Jesus Wow well the drugs would explain why these guys got the work done so fast because I have video that you'll see but we had more card more police cars I think than Miami did at one point oh yeah yeah well you know the funniest thing what you know it's funny what sticks in your mind you can have the best plans and just the simplest little thing can shut you down we have all these cars from all over the place we're in there and we have a big problem lug nuts think about it yeah different size lug nuts you need for all these different vehicles we're gonna we have this multi-million dollar operation going we can't do anything else I have lug nuts so I feel it was just it seems like this would be a person who's one of their tasks is that to find out the lug nut size for every single car you're gonna use on picture on the picture and get 20 sets eventually we do that yeah but yeah but you know you never think about that as you're going in my next picture after that what's the first thing guy but this movie was different from a lot of movies cuz how many I mean how many other car I don't mean when we use do you do that are car movies of this size and scale the picture car warehouse had to have been 40,000 square feet it was massive oh yeah and it was full of cars you show me the latest key list on that and it's got a hundred something cars that we made that we touched not including extra scars oh no these are the ones we owned yeah or rented yeah and yeah and I remember that it wasn't the air-conditioned there's footage some of the footage I have I walk outside of the picture car offices hmm and the lens fogs up but I don't realize that it fogs up because I'm looking through a view piece this big because that's where the shitty cameras were back in 2002 and the lenses fucking fogged up and so it takes about 30 seconds my watches would fog up when you walk out - those guys went through hell that summer was oh yeah and then then you know we as I said you know by committee interesting story they they decided they wanted was a car they wanted Shelby Cobra's yep I hope you remember what happened Shelby code I sure do so they come up they said oh we want you will want Shelby Cobra so Ted Moser calls the guy Nebraska or something's replicas man and we buy the guy man you factors for Shelby Cobra's room got him over there quick they were there oh yeah wait what was the movie business it's if you know it's kind of like alright it's $10 but I need it tomorrow we'll give you then it'll cost you 15 here's 25 I want it tonight you got it yeah one of those so anyhow so the Shelby Cobra's come in we get a script revision yep Shelby Cobra's are out now we want Vipers and I remember that deal right so now but we don't want the color the Vipers are so now there was a Ford dealership in town that were was shutting down its body shop operation and John wiser walks in the office one day he says you know sucked upset Florida's shutting down their body shop I go in the car and we drive over there and I make a deal with Ford to take over their body shop operation and the four painter is that they were think slipping you know I've made a deal with them I said you guys want to work yeah so I took over the Ford body shop and we took the Vipers in and all the panel's of vipers just come off and we painted that we painted a ton of cars over there and so we have that operation going and you know wait for sure the yellow Vipers the yellow Vipers so but those the Cobras the Cobras they wound up Charlie Angels Charlie's Angels yeah we sold them at a discount price I'll bet yeah just to get him out of there oh yeah I think Ted had won still that he left that he had for a while could be yeah cuz I think he bought one for himself yeah we had stuff so then then after that I'd say what else of course that the the bridge jump was the next big scene I'd I tell that story of the bridge jump with Sookie's Esther does and I actually found footage on that tape that was telling you about of them test driving the remote control set up in the picture car warehouse parking lot have it all rigged up and everything fun story about that bridge jump look they came to me and they said well we need a car to follow this that's remote control you know to run the remote control system yeah for the jump right so then they said well we found one out there and were you we're gonna use it and I look it's a picture car it's established picture cars that we established it in another shot and I said no no that's not a good idea because it's a stop it what if something happens to that car oh nothing's gonna happen to that car and against my better judgment because we're out of time I said yeah okay so the breeder jump right mm-hmm they're driving there behind them and I remember it was like there's a dodge to wranger silver right and they're they're following they do the bridge now well the thing goes up and the guy driving the Dodge Durango Oh doesn't quite he goes up the ramp that we put on top of the bridge we got a ramp it goes down I have pictures of it yeah so so anyhow so then that picture car has to work at the trailer park scene so it was the same Durango I actually got that question I said I wasn't sure oh yeah we passed it up enough to be passable to do it but you know that what that does Durango was was I bought it off a lot it was for export it wasn't legal in this country oh really yeah I found an outfit that in Miami that got all these export cars from General Motors and Chrysler and you could buy him but you couldn't register him in this country because they weren't legal yeah so yeah that was that was that just you know late making movies it's just you know one foot on a banana peels the other out the door Yankers and the challengers let's talk about the Incas and the challengers oh yeah the echoes the challengers so that was kind of Ted motors doing that was a Ted deal yeah I know Ted built those things and I know we had a big hook up with year one we did yeah yeah we got a lot of parts on that and you know it just that was more Ted's deal go well speaking of parts we had to build a cage in the warehouse I have footage of it I actually have shots of your son Jeff working in a cage doing the inventory yeah we bar-coded everything yeah everything was counted down to the last nut and bolt it was absolutely brilliant do they normally do that on motion pictures no I started it on I started it on the original fast and furious because what happens is especially a show like that you get all these parts in you get all you know everything inventory of stuff and then at the end of the show the studio goes and they go well where is it you know it's where's the stuff we own it where is and you know these shows then it's always a big hassle so I went to Universal and I said you know I want to come up with a barcode system well they thought well that's a great idea so at the end of the first fast and furious they came in and they wanted to know where all the inventory was and my son Jeff did the barcoding and he came in and gave him a stack it says sahlan it was the parts where they were were they located there in warehouses they were wrecked they were that everything was accounted for and on to universal liked it so much that it was so easy for him it was from me just being an outsider looking in watching the the cage go up with all the tires coming in I only know this but it's kind of a geek thing when the UPS truck shows up for a car guy we're listen it's like fucking Santa Claus on the roof okay though I mean that sleigh bells in everything that's what it's like because something cool is coming in so the day all those night does carbon fiber nitric nitrous bottles came up to the picture car warehouse at Eddie Paul's I have shots of that with the guys on the floor with all these 24 nitrous bottles oh yeah because well getting parts for the second movie were it was easier than getting parts for the first movie getting parts of the first movie was like we had to do a sales job yeah because they they didn't you know it basically it's me walking in there saying this is what I'm gonna do and convincing them that they wanted to do it to the second movie didn't have to convince anybody in fact the second movie I remember you talking to vendors and going no no no we got enough of that we don't want anymore a PC was one they were trying to give us trinkets and trash and we had I think they wound up working on a deal with Universal they actually paid money but everybody else you know I saw voices we did pay for some stuff but we got most stuff at cost to dirt to you because I know what the wheels cost and what we paid but but the product placement deal was a whole nother deal putting stickers on cars people were giving his thing giving his product and I had to literally had checklist where I had to go and check the cars to make sure oh yeah because we had the modern image guys putting decals on cars on call they were there oh yeah the neon guys were on call they were there and that was a big problem did you remember the big stink with the Tyrese wheels on the Eclipse he wanted a certain set of wheels those chrome wheels and it was a big fat bill because they weren't going to give us the wheels oh yeah and the guy who run that will come that come but he's still around but I think we ended up paying that or he ended up paying up but it was a big chunk of money but it was completely different now that that the franchise had taken off Oh people were throwing stuff at you it was good and then after the movie the cars went back into the warehouse yeah after the movie everything went back in the stuff in fact that list I you know that shows where everything wound up yeah went back in and after that after the second faster furious I had enough you're done you know interesting story which I have in my book about when I got they call me Andrew fitted a called me who is the production exec 'end one called me for a meeting at Universal about the second Fast and Furious and I think Mike what tales Mike's last name line producer I forget Michael for trail Oh Mike for a yes elbow TTR yellow Mike for L was line producer he was in the meeting with Andrew and we had it at Universal and they said we're gonna do it faster for just two and and you know we want you to do it and I went okay and they said we want you to kind of like oversee you know transportation that picture cars and kind of deal with stunts we want to be the production supervisor on it and just don't foresee all that you know so I went fine and then Andrea goes well how many people is he said I don't think you have to take anybody from LA they have plenty of qualified people in Miami well you know the my aunt the Teamsters of Miami are notorious and there's no qualified people down there to do a movie of that size so Andrew goes you know and I realized now I've been I've been management for two minutes and I'm ready to have a fight with upper management so I mentioned the fact that I don't think they're qualified and I get to son I said well you must know somebody that filmed in Miami give him a call so for trellis there and because a friend of mine just got back from filming in Miami got back last week so he calls them he says yeah I'm thinking about going Miami and you know what's your experience and he's listening he's listening hangs up the phone and finna dave says well what do you say he says he just got back from Miami testifying against the Teamsters in court it's the worst experience he's ever had and so for the day looks at me says so how many people you think you got it singleton with his he brought a whole bunch of his people his he like he was talking about lunch people like to work with with people they know and trust right right so you develop these relationships over many years of doing this and you've got your you've got to crew your group your Posse right so there was a lot of that so you could definitely see the mix right you could tell that the the John Singleton's crew and in the picture car crew were kind of two separate things but miraculously it all gelled it all it all worked it always does it's just amazing because everybody's United in the purpose and to me as an outsider watching this I was expecting like fighting because it's you know the West Coast versus the East Coast or or this crude this posse from this guy with verses like it you know get best friends in high school oh well you can remember the singleton and and his his group they did new car movies you know the boys yeah a little bit that's what I mean yes and they stayed on urban type urban die pictures part of the problem like with Keith Brian burns he didn't do car movies so he didn't know that you don't put suede inside of a car that's okay yes yeah it's okay but you know if what I found on every film what you think it is going in is not what it is coming out you know because making a film is just problems on me every day is a problem and then just deal with that problem yeah until you know you finally work it on out and so stress and strain and just kind of represents the rough edges off you know but you feel like you accomplished something every day that at least that's the way I felt every day said everything every day there was some other problem we can't get more neon I mean one point we ran out of green neon I had to switch to red or whatever it was on the Supra and people nobody noticed in the movie but today people just write me hate email like what the fuck you people doing you know just these little inconsistencies or because it's not exact science no of course not continuity errors have existed in films for as long as they have been making films so they don't put clocks and rooms yeah yeah yeah you know you just fix it because you got to remember if you if you're filming especially a show like that and for some reason you can't film because you hold up the camera you know every half hour you're blowing through 20 30 50 million fifty thousand dollars every half-hour just what it costs to pay somebody standing on you all the equipment Reynolds and if you go a day over you have to pay more it's you know it's a hundred thousand dollars a day to film just to go to work that's $80,000 so you aiiow queit I quit filmmaking this is what filmmaking is remember Raiders of the Lost Ark quarantine of course that big ball rolling course well that's filmmaking that's production and it's our job to run in front of that ball and make sure that nothing stops it and because if it does stop what happens great metaphor or simile I always get those confused yeah yeah you get flattened you get flat you get right over you get flattened and you don't work in this business again because you know your rep you so you do whatever you can to make sure that doesn't happen and and that's film production and fill print it never stops it just keeps on going so all that said what was your biggest surprise working at the franchise good or bad those two vectors has them furious you don't want or both ah biggest surprise what surprised you the most well unfasten well you know it's an interesting thing I think we talked about this at lunch when you go into these projects right and you read the script and you read 120 page script right and it's all cars crash in the bastion back there is no possible way your brain can comprehend what its gonna take to do it right and if you think about it you scared yourself so bad that you're incapable of doing anything so I have found making movies and in life just look at the end result just know you're gonna do it you just don't know how you're gonna do it but on a daily basis the answers just kind of present themselves to you but and don't have a preordained preconceived notion of what it's going to be because somebody might hand you somebody might hand you the solution but you think it's no unless I'm waiting for so you know there's an old story about that and this this is an old story about the flood and some guys on a roof you know like you down in New Orleans and these old guys on a roof and those neighbors come by in a boat and jump in the boat will save you you know no gods can save me and all right so they take off the water comes up a little bit if the Coast Guard comes by and they go with a helicopter there get on the rope no no no that's ok God's gonna save me well next thing the guy is dead right and he's up he's up st. Peter's up and talking to God and he says hey God I thought you get a Sabian guys I sent you the neighbors I sent you the coastguard you know and that's it that that's it with making movies you know just don't have a preconceived notion about how it's gonna work out because of what I found it's not a direct path it's always here and then it takes you here and it takes you here I I had a I told you the story at lunch and this is a great example of it on interspace I was in San Francisco and I needed a Rolls Royce of 1958 Rolls Royce Prix pre-internet days I you know and they threw that on me and I had like a week to find it and I was just I was swamped company was coming in I was swamped some guy showed up at my door wanted to sell me some mobile phone service and I felt that you know even so busy I'll talk to the guy just tell him I don't need it so the guy comes in I tell him I don't need it he says I've lived in San Francisco my life anything you need let me know and sarcastically I said yeah a 1958 silver white Rolls Royce Rolls Royce he says what color and I said white and the guy says I got three of them well his family had antique business car restoration and right across the street from the hotel was a three-story building that stored all car collections and there were three of them there it's crazy and if I but you know if I just blew the guy off again we didn't ever have nothing but my whole career so I have a whole chapter in the book about stuff like that just we are being lucky yeah it's not so much luck as you draw it to you yeah like we were talking about at lunch if you expect you know you get what you expect you know you you're a magnet whatever you thinking that's what you're gonna talk to you you think you can Henry Ford said it you think you can or you think you can't you're right either way yep that's that's it so yeah that's a good point so that's what got you through how many years of motion picture making 40 40 years of motion picture did 40 years you know it was great film that around the world and top glaciers and jungles and you know it was great it was like it was like it's like going to a giant frat party every day yeah well thank you for inviting me into that world because it certainly changed my life I'm serious I know you think I'm blowing smoke but without you because as I said you draw the right people to you you're the only person that could have got fast and furious made for no money when we're doing it because of your contacts with aftermarket and parts people and the car clubs I mean I didn't know any of those people I only know one person yeah well I appreciate that but there are a lot of people who probably could have done that job just as well if not even better but one thing I think I was pretty good at as being the cheerleader for the project cuz I really wanted it to succeed and and and I'm everybody all my friends had a vested interest all these companies that were working on the picture all donating parties people who had cars and of course Universal I treated like I treated any client I want them to succeed and so it was a fun ride and so they were making number nine right now so we'll see where the franchise takes us and where it ends up but just to reminder everybody please buy this guy's book it's called if it takes more than a doughnut to make a movie it's about David's 40 year career making motion pictures in the transportation in other areas and he's worked on so many movies I can't even name them but if you want to learn a lot about the motion picture business you need to read his book it's absolutely fantastic it's available on Amazon right now Amazon on Amazon so show a picture of in the end thanks again David thank you that's it for this episode thanks for watching everybody if you're liking the videos I've been producing please be sure to subscribe and share them with your friends thanks again everybody talk to you next time

Channel: Craig Lieberman

Views: 74,400

Rating: 4.9295712 out of 5

Keywords: craig lieberman, the fast and the furious, fast and furious behind the scenes, paul walker, vin diesel, jordana brewster, chad lindberg, tyrese gibson

Id: ZaLPcVUA6rw

Length: 57min 55sec (3475 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 13 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/s-e-x-m-a-c-h-i-n-e]

I enjoyed this, thanx op