(upbeat music)
- Ryan, what did film school teach you best,
and fail to teach you?
- I'm really empathizing on a lot of things
that everybody is saying.
I think that, you know, I was fortunate in that
the biggest thing that I walked away with, from film school,
was just a lot of my colleagues.
You know, like I met the composer that's done
all of my films, at film school.
One of my editors who's working with me the whole time.
A lot of my producing collaborators I met there.
So that was really the community was the
most valuable thing that it gave.
And just the opportunity to do it.
You know, I'm from a place where it just
wasn't really something that people did.
From the Bay Area, same place as Mari,
same place as Tom Hanks.
Crazy enough.
- Oh, really?
- [Marielle] It's true.
- Yeah, but I spent most of my life playing football,
and going to school and thinking, oh, I was going to do that.
- Did you make it in the NFL?
- That's what we thought until we got older,
then we was like, 'til I had to tackle Marshawn.
You know what I'm saying?
Then it was reality check.
But, no, so once I realized that it was maybe an option,
you know, you just needed time to do it.
That's what it also gave, just hours, you know what I mean?
Standing on set, learning what it is, you know?
- Just knowing someone who does it, too.
'Cause I don't think I grew up ever knowing anybody who
was a film maker, you know.
I knew people who were doing theater.
- Right.
- But I didn't know anybody.
What does it even look like?
- What you don't know, you're afraid of,
you know what I mean?
I found it to be that.
So in terms of, you know, and I can't say
what it failed to teach me.
I think you get out of it what you
bring to it inherently and circumstantially,
you know what I mean?
I was fortunate to come out of school and
make my first movie pretty quickly.
And it was through a connection that I made in school
that I was able to pitch it.
So I got nothing bad to say about the process, you know.
It was expensive.
(laughter)
(upbeat music)
- Do you have a touchstone film you
like to go back to and watch again?
For instance, I think Bob Zemeckis told me once
that he always watches The Godfather before
he starts shooting.
- For me it's a film called "A Prophet."
- [Host] Oh yeah, Jacques Audiard.
- [Ryan] That's the one for me.
- Why?
- I love the way it made me feel,
like the first time I saw it.
I find that when it gets tough,
like when I'm in the hard part,
I'm not seeing my wife, I'm not seeing my family,
I'm away from the Bay Area, it's putting me in a bad mood,
I'll put that in, and it's
a reminder of what a movie can be.
It's like, oh yeah, that's why I'm doing this.
I got a shot at maybe making somebody feel like that,
you know what I mean?
I watched this
Brooklyn gentleman's movie,
Do the Right Thing, quite a bit.
Sometimes you got to remind yourself,
why you're doing it, what the medium is capable of.
You know what I mean?
And it'll give me a little bit of gas to keep going.
(upbeat music)
- Was Black Panther a political film for you?
- Yeah, it was about a politician, you know.
So it was no way for it to not be.
- Yeah, yeah, fantastic.
- We always saw it like, it's a character who's the
political leader of a fictional country,
and it's fictional, you know?
But we put it on a real continent.
We wanted to set it in the real world.
And that's kind of how that character saw himself,
how he identified himself, as a politician.
So through that, it's definitely a political film.
- When you're dealing with a big studio on,
what's clearly designed to be a franchise,
how different is it,
what kind of restrictions do they put on you?
- The biggest difference actually
wasn't in the restrictions.
It was actually in the lack of restrictions.
That's the bigger difference.
Like when I was back on my first film,
I think we had this perception of Bradley,
who spent a lot of time on all different types
of sets as an actor.
I think we all started relatively small, you know.
I seen all of you all first movies.
It was pretty small, and when you're dealing with
not a lot of money, you got a lot of limitations.
And it actually helps you move faster,
'cause you can't just do anything.
Maybe sometimes there's only one place
you can put the camera.
You can only be in this location for two hours,
and then you got to go, so it makes it a little simpler.
Which in effect, makes it easier like when you can do
anything, you know what I mean.
And that's kind of what happens with a film like this.
That's what I found made it a lot harder.
And you're just dealing with so many more people.
You got to get comfortable directing in a room
full of 75, 100 people sometimes.
And a lot of times, I found directing can make you feel
like you're naked, you know what I mean?
Like directing on a ten-person crew is like
being naked in front of ten people.
But if you, with 200 people, you know what I mean?
It's just a different bar.
- Do you all feel that vulnerability?
- That's all the way butt-naked, right?
- All the way butt-naked, yeah.
(laughter)
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