C&RV: Introductions: Name, Current Project & Occupation
M"J"P: Michael "Jocco" Phillips, First Assistant Director BONES
C&RV: For those who may not know exactly what this job entails, can you sum up your daily tasks/responsibilities.
M"J"P: My job divides into two phases, prep and shoot. During prep I am responsible for breaking down the script into it's individual elements (cast, locations, props, etc) and then scheduling the filming in the most efficient way possible. On the set I run the day-to-day operations and make sure all of the elements are available at the right time so the director can maximize his/her shooting day.
C&RV: You've worked on Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love. How did you get yourself embedded into The Family?
M"J"P: John Wildermuth and Adam Druxman, the assistant directors I worked for on my first big movie in LA (THE FAN) were hired to do BOOGIE NIGHTS and called me to ask if I wanted to work on their next movie. I said "yes!" immediately and drove to the production office in Hollywood to pick up the script.
I read it when I got home and was terrified! What have I gotten myself into? I had only been in LA a few months from Texas and come from a rather conservative family. Pornos? "Joy Juice"? So after panicking for a few hours I read it again and was able to see beyond the salaciousness of the subject matter and realized this was an amazing script.
When I met Paul his passion and energy were so overwhelming and I knew we were in good hands. One of Paul's greatest attributes is his accessibility to the cast and crew. His love for actors is well known but I was a green Production Assistant and we could talk and joke around like I was an old friend.
Adam was hired to do both MAGNOLIA and PDL and so I was able to work on both of those films as well. It was a very special time in my life.
C&RV: What, if any, are some of the advantages to working on a production with Paul that you don't necessarily experience on other sets.M"J"P: Well, I partly answered this question in my previous one but Paul knew exactly what he wanted, especially on MAGNOLIA. We would be on the Tech Scout (where all the Department Heads travel to all of the locations) and he would walk into a room and say "24mm lens here... tracking across to here. Dolly track here." Four months later we are in that room to film and sure enough there was a 24mm lens here with dolly track there. It may not seem like a big deal but after 19 years in the industry you realize that that kind of vision and decisiveness is extremely rare. Another thing about Paul that I find unique is that everything is in the script. Shots, angles, ideas, his scripts are very visual.
C&RV: Best On/Off Set Story/Experience That Won't Get You In Trouble/Blacklisted, Go:M"J"P: BOOGIE NIGHTS - We are shooting 16mm footage for the Brock Landers movies during prep (before principle photography) and Paul decides he needs more "bad guys" for a fight sequence to be shot later in the day. Adam is going to call extras casting but I say "Hey! I could be a bad guy! We can shave my head, give me a moustache or something!" Adam tells Paul and he says "Great!"
Later that day, with a freshly-shorn cranium and big bushy 'stache I make cinematic history fighting with Mark and John C. smashing a bottle over my head (six times!) We develop a back story for my "character". He is a low-level thug that works for Ringo and his name is... Jocco. A nickname is born.MAGNOLIA - When we finished principle photography Paul was generous enough to hire me as a personal assistant during the post-production process. When he decided to include the Frank TJ Mackey Infomercial on the dvd he allowed me to film a "product shot" and record voice-over for an end-tag to the actual commercial you see in the film. As with my stunt work in BOOGIE NIGHTS, Paul required a level of amateurism that you just can't fake. I delivered that level of amateurism.Footnote: Paul sent MAGNOLIA to Harry Knowles' Butt-Numb-A-Thon with a video introduction to the film. I was PTA.
C&RV: Sandler, like PTA, is well known for repeating crews and cast. After Punch-Drunk, you had a solid string of work on Adam's films. I assume this stemmed from the two of you becoming friends during Paul's production?M"J"P: Absolutely. I spent a lot of time in Basecamp on PDL and got to know Adam and his crew very well. They are some of the friendliest, generous, down-to-earth and loyal people it has been my pleasure to meet. I got my first big DGA feature credit on Adam's film FIFTY FIRST DATES. They even named the walrus in the film after me. I didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. (I was flattered)
C&RV: You were not involved with There Will Be Blood. Was that due to scheduling or you just weren't involved?M"J"P: A little of both. Paul had decided early on that he wanted to work with new assistant directors (Adam Somner, Spielberg's First Assistant). Once in production I was pleased to receive a call to come fill in for the second assistant director but unfortunately I was already in production of season two of PRISON BREAK.
C:RV& Speaking about graphic design briefly, you are co-responsible for one of my favorite cover designs ever: Fiona Apple's "When The Pawn..." What was the pitch/process/story etc -- have you done any design work for others as well?M"J"P: Again a case of being in the right place at the right time. When I was working for Paul on MAGNOLIA he and Fiona were together. She had this idea that she wanted for the album artwork.
I simply helped her with some photo & lyric layouts on the computer. It was great and pleasant surprise when the cd came out and she had included me in the liner notes. I was just a monkey at a keyboard. It is a testament to her kindness that my name is there and it is something I will always treasure.(C&RV Note: Michael also mentioned he was the author and cover designer of the 6 Music Videos By PTA DVD that we originally gave out on the site many years ago)
C&RV: You seem t have migrated primarily into series television. Has this format evolved into your preference over film work, or do you go where the most appealing meal is?M"J"P: I do enjoy the stability that comes from working on episodic television. I had a nice four-year run on PRISON BREAK and I'm just starting my second year on BONES. I was able to move up much faster in television than I would have been able to in features. That being said, I still have a great love for telling one story from start to finish. We'll see what the future holds.
C&RV: After initially scanning your IMDB profile and seeing "Black & White" I knew the plan would be to close with a question about Mike Tyson. Turns out you worked on a different "Black & White." Not one to give up on a plan: Do you have any thing to say about Mike Tyson?M"J"P: We were watching the Tyson-Holyfield fight at a friend's apartment on a television that was nearly as big as the room. I saw him bite that ear off in way-too graphic detail.I'm sure he's a lovely man.
C&RV: What is coming next for you sir? Continued work on Bones? Plans to venture into directing or is that not something that appeals to you?M"J"P: Had PRISON BREAK gone another season or two I definitely would have pursued a shot a directing an episode. I had a very intimate knowledge of the show creatively and from a production standpoint. My real desire is to eventually work as a creative producer. I want to find and develop good stories and assemble the creative team necessary to bring it to the audience. Show Business is one of the few industries in which you must take a pay cut to get a promotion but I will not rest until the sign on the hill says "JOCCOWOOD". ;)
You can check out the rest of their list by clicking here.2. Punch Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)Adam Sandler proved he was more than just a lightweight comedy actor with Paul Thomas Anderson’s dark romantic comedy. Anderson had shocked many when he stated after previous film “Magnolia” that he wanted to work with Sandler. The comic actor was known for his box office comedy hits such as “Big Daddy” and “The Wedding Singer” but seemed like a strange match for Anderson who was conversely known for the hard-hitting and often downbeat, ensemble epics “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia”. However, credit to both actor and director for pulling off what is arguably their best work.
Emily Watson talked Project X4 to the weekly magazine, The Georgia Straight, about Project X4 while promoting Altman's Gosford Park (Thanks Owen!):Watson did say yes to Paul Thomas Anderson, the Magnolia and Boogie Nights director, when he was looking for a lead female for his first comedy, Punch Drunk Knuckle Love. The film's male lead: none other than Adam Sandler."I had the best time," she says, "and Adam is amazing. Paul pulls down something very different from what he has done before and so does Adam, and I guess so do I. I'll admit we're a strange threesome, but it was a happy meeting."Musician Nick Cave (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds) had this to say about Magnolia in a recent interview in the 2001 Winter issue of Mojo. (Thanks Ryan!)He doesn't find that much to admire about recent movies - especially the Coen brothers - though he did like Michael Mann's Heat and The Informer, and thoroughly enjoyed Paul Anderson's Magnolia. "I love the way that it descends into misery," he says. "There's a section in the middle which goes on for ages, where everyone's just in agony, sitting there crying. You don't often get that from Hollywood: lengthy periods of sorrow just aren't welcome, you have a cry for two seconds and then everybody's happy again. And I liked the shower of frogs: to me it was like an apocalypse, God yawning at everyone's stupidity, and sending down a plague."In case you missed it, the Boogie Nights DVD was listed among Entertainment Weekly's Essential DVDs of the Century. Here's their comments:Boogie Nights (1997) (New Line, R, $29.95) Leave it to the leader of a ''funky bunch'' to star in a porn flick. Or rather, a flick about porn. But Mark Wahlberg proved to be the perfect choice to play Dirk Diggler, the well-endowed star of Paul Thomas Anderson's ode to the adult-film industry. And while size may indeed matter, it was Anderson's deft attention to detail that made ''Boogie Nights'' the defining cinematic look back at the glitzy, glamorous (and grimy) late '70s.Here's an interesting article about the spirituality of Magnolia. You can read it here. (Thanks Nick!)
A few mentions of Project X4 have surfaced in the past week. The Daily Texan lists the film as the #3 most anticipated film for 2002. Here's what they said (Thanks William!):# 3 - P.T. Anderson ProjectOf all the projects kept under wraps, none have done a better job of doing so than Paul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to Magnolia. But even if Anderson kept an online production journal of the shoot, describing every detail, the curiosity surrounding it would remain unfettered. With Anderson's choices for leading man being Adam Sandler (that's not a misprint) and Emily Watson for leading lady, the level of mystery about the film, which is supposedly a romantic comedy, has only heightened. For months, the film has had online film circles guessing about both the titles (everything from Punch Drunk Love to Knuckle Sandwich) and the plot. What is known, however, is that part of the film will take place in Hawaii, where Anderson took his cast and crew last January. Also, Anderson film regulars Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Luis Guzman have both taken supporting roles in the film. Anderson was also quoted recently that the film will be Adam Sandler's "$25 million arthouse movie," which could have easily been said by Quentin Tarantino after the two met on the set of Sandler's Little Nicky and struck up a friendship.Tarantino turned around and wrote a part for Sandler in his upcoming war film, Glorious Bastards. Unfortunately for Tarantino, Anderson was quicker to sign Sandler, who has a busy 2002 ahead of him with two other films, including Mr. Deeds, a loosely based remake of the Frank Capra classic, and 8 Crazy Nights, an animated film about the joys of celebrating Hanukkah. Regardless of Sandler's other projects, the untitled P.T. Anderson project should receive the most ink come awards time, when the film is suspected to be released.UK film magazine Empire also high expectations for Project X4 in their 2002 film preview. They are still showing the name as Punchdrunk Knuckle Love & their plot synopsis isn't right, but oh well.Rocky Horror Magnolia? Here's an amusing story from site reader (& assistant manager of the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles) Marc Edward Heuck.We show The Rocky Horror Picture Show Saturday night. We have a great house cast called Sins o' the Flesh that perform the live portion of the experience; they've won awards all over and should be considered the best Rocky cast in America. Anyhow, last Saturday, Jan. 12th, the cast did a "90's night" show, in which instead of dressing like Rocky characters--Brad, Frankie, etc.--they dressed as '90's icons. For example, "Brad" was Adam Sandler, "Frank 'n' Furter" was Ace Ventura, "Janet" was SNL character Mary Catherine Gallagher (Superstar), you get the idea. Also, at strategic points in the movie, we would cut out from the movie audio and drop in some 90's related audio for comic effect. For example, our "Eddie" came dressed as Cartman from South Park, and after the first verse of "Hot Patootie," we went out of that song and into "Kyle's Mom is a Bitch."Anyhow, for the final scene of the movie before end credits, where the "Super Heroes" song number would be as Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott crawl in the ruins of Frank 'n' Furter's castle, we dropped in Aimee Mann's "Wise Up," and as the performers lip-synched the song on stage, we proceeded to pelt the audience with tiny rubber frogs. I personally got on top of what would be the roof of the concession stand (the portion recessed into the theatre auditorium) and flung nearly 22 dozen of them into the puzzled crowd. Most people in the movie theatre, of course, had never seen Magnolia, so they were left wondering what the hell this was all about. In fact, most of the cast had never seen the film either, but just liked the bizarre idea of dropping frogs on the audience. The few people in attendance who had seen the film, though, loved it.
UK's Hotdog Magazine has an interview with Mark Wahlberg in their January 2002 issue. He talks a bit about a possible upcoming musical project with PTA as well as the Sandler/PTA project. Thanks to site reader Lianne for sending this in. Here's the excerpt:Hotdog - Jordan Riefe: What about a Musical?MW: Actually, me and Paul Thomas Anderson have discussed it at length. Just a matter of finding the right thing. He's actually writing one, which is going to be crazy, a Paul Thomas Anderson musical. A lot of cocaine.Hotdog: This isn't his next film, the Adam Sandler one?MW: No, this is a kind of like a weird action drama thing he wrote. Kind of like the Chest and Brock movie, the characters we came up with in Boogie Nights, but a real, full-blown action feature with these guys running around crazy.On a related note, Variety ran an article on PTA's current home, Joe Roth's Revolution Studios & they are reporting a Fall 2002 release for Project X4. We'll just have to wait & see. You can read the whole story here.Lastly, here's an extremely well researched & fascinating analysis of Magnolia by site reader Natalie McDonald from Philadelphia, PA. Check it out here.
As you've probably noticed, things have been extremely quiet, but I'm pleased to share some exciting news today. Yep, that's a behind the scenes still from the PTA/Adam Sandler film (courtesy of the Adam's official site). You'll notice that PTA's hair is quite short which means he probably continued his ritual of shaving his head whenever he starts work on a new film. Oh yeah, one more small thing. I've heard from PTA's camp that Punchdrunk Knuckle Love will not be the name of film. Not sure what happened, but I should be talking to Paul soon & I hope to find out.Attn Canadian Readers: Showcase (sort of the Canadian HBO) is running a contest for people to vote for what movie they want played on New Years. Hard Eight, Exotica Another Day In Paradise, The Dreamlife of Angels & Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss are the nominees. You can vote at their official site.
Adam Sandler is a busy man. According to Variety, his next film may be Revolution Studios' Anger Management, playing a timid businessman who is sentenced to an anger management program where he finds himself tutored by an ultra-aggressive psycho. Possible co-stars include Jack Nicholson, though no offers have been made.In addition to the upcoming PTA film, Punchdrunk Knuckle Love, Sandler has also completed work on Deeds, the Sony/Columbia Tri Star picture inspired by Mr. Deeds Comes to Town co-starring Winona Ryder. Other possible Sandler projects include the romantic comedy Fifty First Kisses with Julia Roberts & Scared Guys, a Dean Parisot-directed comedy about a man with phobias who attempts to leave his apartment for the first time in years to stop a contract killing.Michael Chabon will be interviewing Ricky Jay in this Thursday, December 6th in San Francisco at the Herbst Theatre. Definitely worth checking out if you live in the Bay Area. You can call (415) 392-4400 for more information. (Thanks John!)As many of you reported, Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings) was among the guests on the premiere episode of MTV's Movie House. Hard Eight was mentioned as one of his favorite films during a trip into a video store. He even explained that the film's original title was Sydney. The PTA fan base continues to grow...Director Joel Schumacher briefly mentions Boogie Nights, referring to the opening tracking shot as "great" during his commentary track for the St. Elmo's Fire DVD. (Thanks Jeff!)
I'm please to announce that PTA's next film should be the much talked about collaboration with Adam Sandler. The story was leaked by the Hollywood Reporter & you can read their comments below. There really are no specifics at this time (including a studio), but New Line seems the likely place based on Paul & Adam's history with the studio. Just remember that things can change at anytime & this is far from a done deal. I've been sworn to secrecy on this issue for many months, but I can tell you that PTA has been extremely busy writing the script specifically for Adam. I'm sure you've read the many comments that PTA has made about working with Adam (if not, see the Articles & Interviews section), so this shouldn't come as much of shock to anyone who reads the site. When I'm able to share more details, you'll hear it here.Anderson, Sandler in talks to team up on comedyPaul Thomas Anderson and Adam Sandler are in discussions to join forces on a feature comedy project that Anderson wrote and will direct with Sandler possibly starring, sources said. The move seems very un-Anderson, considering that the filmmaker has been prone to three-hour dramatic epics, most recently "Magnolia." But sources said Anderson has been honing his comedic skills during the past year by writing for "Saturday Night Live" and recently finishing his comedy script. Now that the project is ready to find a home, New Line Cinema, which released Anderson's "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia," will naturally get the first look. The studio also has a long-standing relationship with Sandler, who has a two-picture deal there.Courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter - 8/23/00In other casting news, Variety is reporting that Melora Walters will star in Rain for executive producer Martin Scorsese & director Katherine Lindberg. It centers on a woman who kills her husband & has an affair with a man who turns out to be her son she gave up for adoption. It's nice to see Melora get some attention as she was the standout (in my opinion) as Claudia in Magnolia. I'm still working on that interview with her & I will keep you posted on my progress.Magnolia remained strong on the VHS rental chart for the week ending August 13th. It maintained its 5th place position, earning 5.52 million in weekly rental revenue.I'll return Friday with more exciting news to celebrate the Magnolia DVD release next week!
News Askew, the site devoted to all things Kevin Smith, turned into a PTA site yesterday (complete with graphics "borrowed" from my site). To see what the site looked like, click here. This was fairly elaborate (& they left it up all day), but when will this idiotic Kevin Smith vs. PTA crap end? It's nice to see PTA take the high road & not comment publicly after all Kevin Smith's remarks regarding Magnolia (See Latest News January Archive if you really want to revisit this). Although the News Askew joke was in jest & did not appear mean spirited, hopefully this is the end of this topic.The second joke was done through the PTA mailing list/email group by its manager. He redid the Internet Movie Database complete with headlines about PTA's "next project", A Midget Musical starring Adam Sandler. This was quite inspired with "quotes" from Joanne Sellar & PTA. Click here to follow the link: (The story is on the right hand side).
