INT: My name is Seith Mann, today is May 14th. I am conducting an interview with Ernest Dickerson for the Directors Guild of America's Visual History Program. We are conducting this interview virtually. I'm at The Marmara Park Avenue and Ernest is at the DGA in Los Angeles, California.

ED: Hello, my name is Ernest Dickerson. I was born Ernest Dickerson. Nicknames, I don't know, I've been Called E.D., Roscoe, Ernie D, all different stuff. I was born June 25th, 1951 in Newark, New Jersey, in the good old US of A.

INT: You forgot my nickname for you, I like to call you Master Ernest. [ED: Thank you. I don't often know if I deserve that, but, you know.] Oh, yes you do. Actually, I don't know if you remember, there's a grip that I think I worked with on JERICHO and DEXTER. And he had worked with you on DEXTER and he got me into that. He always referred to you as Master Ernest. And I said, "That is definitely appropriate." And so, that's how I always refer to you when I'm talking about you now. [ED: Oh, thank you.]

INT: So, let's start with starting out. Can you talk about your early life, your education and ambitions. Who were your teachers and mentors who influenced you? And if so, how did they influence you?

ED: Well, as I said, I was born in Newark, New Jersey. I, you know, went to nursery school, I was a latchkey kid. Then I went to Catholic school, Catholic elementary school, Saint Mary's in Newark, New Jersey. And then eventually went to Saint Charles Borromeo in Newark and was there until the eighth grade. Can't say I had any real mentors there or even in high school, I went to Catholic high school, Essex Catholic High, also in Newark, New Jersey. And, you know, wasn't too sure what I wanted to do. So, I started taking classes at Rutgers University for a little while before I wound up transferring to Howard. I transferred to Howard University to study architecture. But I always grew up loving film, I always grew up seeing movies. You know, movies and jazz was always a part of my household. My uncle was a jazz musician, you know, and my family just loved movies. So, even when I went to Howard and I was studying architecture in Washington DC, I was at Howard from '72 [1972] to '77 [1977], five-year program in architecture. And, you know, had some great theaters there, you know, that showed classic films. You know, The Circle Theatre and the AFI, you know, so went to see a lot of movies. And, you know, I was always interested in the craft of filmmaking, didn't really start taking it seriously until I just decided to audit a class in cinematography at the Howard school of communications [Cathy Hughes School of Communications]. And it was taught by a gentleman named Roland Mitchell. And I think Roland was probably my first mentor. Roland taught us how to be a good AC [Assistant Camera Operator], that was, you know, the thing for the class. And I was taking it without credit 'cause, you know, I was doing all my credits in architecture. So, I was just auditing it. The thing is, I had accumulated enough credits at Rutgers [Rutgers University], so when I transferred over I can just pretty much concentrate on the architectural classes and to fill up some of that time I also took the cinematography one class. So, you know, that taught me respect for the equipment. Roland really taught us how to approach a camera, you know, respect for the machinery. You know, you had to have your AC kit with your orange sticks, you know, you had to know how to load a magazine and how to thread it, thread it through and everything. So, that was pretty cool. And I think, you know, he taught me respect for the technology.

ED: And then I also wound up, you know, since I was a kid I always had part-time jobs, even from high school I always had a part time job. So, when I was at Howard [Howard University], I was trying to get a part-time job. You know, and at first I thought being a design student I could get a job in an architect's office. No way. The Nixon administration was in full swing then, so building was at an all-time low. So, I was going to architects' offices and you know, they said, "Well, we can hire you but we can't pay you anything." And that kind of like defeats its own purpose. So, I didn't know what I was gonna do but I just needed to make some money. And I decided to try and get a job on the school [Howard University] newspaper, The Hilltop. And I had a still camera, my uncle who I can talk about later, who probably is the man who helped me make the directions in my life that I made, you know, more than anybody else. I had a still camera and I had, you know, one instance where a friend of mine had a darkroom at his school and I got one chance to learn how to print black and white and, you know, liked it. You know, really liked it. Was, you know, fascinated with it but, you know, that was then. And so, I decided, you know, since I had this camera maybe I should try and get a job on The Hilltop newspaper as a photographer. And it was quite amazing because I went down there for an interview and I had my camera with me, and I walked into The Hilltop office and nobody was there. And so, I just said, "Okay, I'll just sit here and wait." And while I was waiting, this report came in that they were doing these Senate hearings, they were interviewing the parents of these two young African American girls from Alabama. They were twins, the Relf twins [Relf sisters]. And what happened was that they went to their doctor for a regular checkup, just for a checkup. And while they were there the doctor said, "Oh, while I'm here I'll just sterilize you." [INT: What?] And that's what he did. He sterilized them. And it turned out he had been doing this to a lot of young Black children, a lot of young Black girls. And so, her parents were talking, you know, had this whole Senate hearing to investigate this. And they said they needed somebody to go down there and shoot it, and they said, "What about you? Can you do it? You got your camera?" I said, "Yeah, I got my camera, I'm ready to go." So, I went down there, it was Ted Kennedy. Ted Kennedy who was in charge of the investigation. So, I went down there and it was the first time I found myself jostling against all these other news photographers, you know, trying to find my way to get that shot. And Ted Kennedy walked in and he walked right by me, I shot his picture and then, you know, I found my way in and shot the hearing. Took the film back to The Hilltop newspaper, this great guy named Larry Holland, who also became another mentor of mine, who was the photo editor of the paper. He said, "Okay, I'm gonna tell you how to like develop your film, teach you how to roll it on to the reel. You're gonna develop it and you're gonna print it." So, that's what I did. I wound up developing it and then produce a contact sheet. He went through the contact sheet, circled two pictures. He said, "Go down to the basement, don't come up until you give me a print," you know, "a print of each one." And so, that was my initiation into that and I wound up becoming a member of the photography staff. And that's how I really learned photography. And, you know, so those first two mentors, Roland Mitchell, Larry Holland.

ED: And so, I was doing a lot of black and white, shooting a lot of stuff, you know, we had the editor of The Hilltop newspaper was a guy named Zeke Mobley, Ezekiel Mobley [Ezekiel C. Mobley, Jr.], who's mission was to turn The Hilltop into kind of like the school newspaper version of Life magazine. You know, he was gonna be heavily dependent on photography, a lot of images. So, they had us working, you know, doing a lot of interesting stuff. So, I was alternating between architectural school, doing my design work, and doing the photographs for the newspaper. And it was a steady job. And then, I decided that I was going to take a minor in color photographic illustration. You know, I decided to take photography classes at the school of art and I already knew black and white, so I went right into color, and I learned how to print color. And the instructor's name was a painter, a brother named Wadsworth Jarrell, who taught me how to print color, taught me how to shoot color. And so, I would always take classes either in architecture or I would audit the classes in the school of communications and filmmaking. And I would sit in on classes with Haile Gerima. And I think Haile is the man that really started me thinking more and more seriously about film. And so, I was working in photography but I was still heading towards my bachelor of architecture degree. And I graduated in '77 [1977], but I still continued to work in photography, I wound up getting a job at Howard Medical School doing medical photography. And that was working at a full-time lab, you know, doing a lot of surgical photography, a lot of clinical photography, public relations. We used to call them, "Grip and grins," you know, where they were giving a check to the school or something and I think I even photographed a family member of yours, Marion Mann. [INT: Marion Mann?] Marion Mann, yeah. [INT: Really?] Yeah, he was the head of the school, you know, and tough 'cause I think he was a general. I think he was a general but yeah, he acted like it, too. He was strictly military. So, I wound up doing... [INT: He just turned 100 years old. He just turned 100.] He's still alive? [INT: Yeah.] Wow. Wow. I don't know if he'd remember me. But I know he... [INT: I will ask him. I owe him a call.] You know, what happened was that, you know, when I was working at the medical school there were two brothers that were working in there with me, Jeff and Greg. And we used to go see a lot of movies, you know, and we would go on all kinds of adventures. And we even got into skydiving. And so, during the summer of '77, I was skydiving, you know, we had to go every Saturday, this place in Hagerstown, Maryland, you know, called the Southern Cross Paracenter. So, we did that until I made a bad landing one day and broke my ankle. So, I had to wear, I had a cast, you know, a cast up to my knee. And rather than cut up a pair of pants, long pants, to accommodate the cast, I wore shorts. And I think Marion Mann thought that was the most despicable thing he'd ever seen in his life. 'Cause I was showing up to work wearing shorts with a cast, with a walking cast, you know. So, if he remembers me for anything it'll probably be for that. You know, 'cause he would always look at me and give me this frown, you know, "That's disgusting, you know, you should put some pants on!" You know.

ED: But it was, you know, we were going to see a lot of movies, you know, at the AFI. You know, they would do interesting retrospectives like, you know, Nicolas Roeg retrospectives like WALKABOUT and DON’T LOOK NOW. You know, they would show David Lean retrospectives. You know, D.C. [Washington D.C.] was an interesting place to see films at that time. They had a 70-millimeter film festival. I went and saw a beautiful 70-millimeter print of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, first time I had ever seen the movie. And I went to see it for Freddie Young's cinematography and it was gorgeous. You know, and we used to see a lot of movies, we'd go to the midnight screenings, we went to, you know, first time I ever saw ERASERHEAD was at a midnight screening in D.C. and THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW in D.C. And then one day, you know, we had been reading about this movie that was gonna be coming out called STAR WARS, and we were determined we were gonna see it on the first day. So, we made sure we got all of our work done early so we could shut the lab down and got in there for the first screening of STAR WARS, the day it opened at the Uptown Theater. You know, it had the wrap-around screen and we stayed for two showings and walked out afterwards and saw the block was, I mean, the line was all the way around the block. You know, for the first showing we just walked right in, but after that, you know, if you wanted to see STAR WARS you had to stand in line. And so, you know, a lot of things were happening in my life at that time and as much as I loved Washington D.C., I knew I couldn't stay there. And I started really thinking about getting into film. And so, I ultimately applied to New York University in the graduate school. And got in there and that's how I got into filmmaking. [INT: That's great.]

INT: Can you talk about, you mentioned that you had an uncle that was a tremendous influence on you. [ED: Yes. Yeah.] And can you elaborate on that?

ED: My uncle Daoud. My uncle Daoud, his name was. He was Muslim, he made his hajj twice, so his name was El Hajj Daoud Abdur Rahman Haroon. He was my mother's brother, younger brother. And, you know, growing up he was my Uncle Johnny 'cause his Christian name was John Lewis. And, you know, in Boston he was a jazz musician, so he was kind of like my big brother growing up. You know, my dad died when I was eight years old. [INT: I'm sorry.] And so, you know, Uncle Daoud or Uncle Johnny back then, you know, I'd love hanging out with him, going to jazz sessions, going to practice sessions with him and other musicians. He lived in Boston, then eventually he moved to New York. He lived in Chinatown. He lived right underneath the Manhattan Bridge on the Chinatown side and there was a Chinese theater that was just a couple of doors down from his house, I mean, from his apartment. And, you know, we'd go see kung fu films, you know. So, but he was, you know, he would always come over, and we'd stay up late watching movies and so, you know, I got hip to a lot of older films, you know, watching 'em with him until, you know, the wee hours of the morning. You know, those were when you had like THE LATE SHOW, then THE LATE LATE SHOW, you know, that kind of stuff. And he became an artist in residence at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, in musical history. And while he was there he started dabbling in black and white photography. This is before I went to Howard [Howard University]. He started dabbling in black and white photography and used to, you know, bring to our house and show us these beautiful black and white prints he had done. And that really started piquing my interest in photography. But I was always interested in why certain movies looked the way they did. You know, we didn't have color TV 'til I was in high school. So, even, you know, looking at a lot of black and white films, there were certain black and white films that, you know, there was just something about the way they looked and I didn't know what it was. And one night we were watching David Lean's OLIVER TWIST and I'm sitting there with my uncle. And in the opening scenes, those of you that have seen the film, it's absolutely amazing. You know, with Oliver's mother in labor walking across the marshes as the storm clouds are coming up with skeletal trees and the wind blowing across the ponds and everything. And my uncle just happened to say, "Damn, this photography is beautiful." And that's when it hit me because I made the connection between the black and white prints that he had done and what I was seeing on the screen, and I said, "Oh wow, that's... movies are photographed. Yeah, there's somebody called the Director of Photography." You know? You know, that's when I first made that connection.

ED: And then, I just, you know, really tried to get my hands on everything I could find out about cinematography and film. [INT: And this is before you went to Howard [Howard University]?] This is before I went to Howard, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And even thought about maybe I should go into filmmaking, you know, in college. But, you know, back then in the late ‘60s [1960s], early ‘70s [1970s], you know, everybody that I knew and myself also, you know, trying to think of, "If I go to college, I got to do something that's gonna give back to the community." You know, "What can I do to service the community?" And, you know, my mother had just moved into a new house and a new house for her, it was actually an older house. And we spent several weekends, you know, going there and renovating it and repairing it. And, you know, actually doing some minor construction and that's when I started thinking about architecture. And so, that's what drew me to architecture. But film was always in the background there, but there wasn't anybody to really teach me that that was something I should consider as a viable career, you know. That didn't happen until Howard University. [INT: Word.]

INT: And so, after Howard [Howard University] you applied to NYU [New York University Tisch School of the Arts]. Can you talk a little bit about your experience at NYU and why NYU in particular?

ED: Well, NYU because, you know, being from the New York area I wanted to go back to New York. I also checked out School of Visual Arts, but I was really more interested in NYU's program because they really stressed making films there. Basically, the program, you go, you spend maybe the first month or so in class, but then you really spend the rest of your time working on films, either your own film or somebody else's film. And I went to check out the school and met a young lady who took me around and showed me the place, young lady named Sara Driver, who is Jim Jarmusch's wife. 'Cause Jim Jarmusch was there at the same time. And, you know, it just seemed like the ideal place to... you know, I was applying as a cinematography major so I already knew the rules of photography, you know, I had already done lighting, you know, with my stills. And for me this was a chance to really get to use movie cameras. And so, it was great. You know, the first year there, you're dealing totally with visual storytelling. The last project is a non-sync sound film, you know, we didn't actually get into sync-sound until the second year but, you know, the first couple of projects are all visual storytelling. And I had this great instructor, a lady named Roberta Hodes. And she just passed away just, wow, a couple of months ago. [INT: Oh, I'm sorry.] She was Elia Kazan's Script Supervisor. She was Script Supervisor on ON THE WATER FRONT. Script Supervisor on BABY DOLL. Script Supervisor on A FACE IN THE CROWD. You know, and she was tough. She was a tough lady. And really--

INT: What did she [Roberta Hodes] teach you [at NYU]? What was her class that she taught you?

ED: It was general production, it was in her class that you made your film. You know, you had production, which kinda like encompassed everything. But then you also had a class in cinematography, a class in editing, classes in motion picture history, movie history, acting, classes in acting. And cinematography was easy for me 'cause, you know, I already knew photography. You know, first day in that class everybody walks in and see the lenses with all the numbers all around 'em, said, "Oh my god, what is all this? What's all this?" It was like, you know? It was nothing, you know, 'cause, you know, I had been a photographer. But Roberta really taught us, you know, storytelling. How to approach a script, how to approach telling a story. Especially, you know, in her first-year class which was all visual. And she challenged us, you know, she was tough. She had this office and, you know, you'd show her your film and then you'd wait outside her office to get your grade. And, you know, a lot of people were very nervous. And I think the first year there were probably maybe about 75 to 80 students in the first year. Second year, there were only about 25. You had to be invited back. It had a really high attrition rate, you know, you had to be invited back. And she said something to me after I presented my final film that year. She said something to me that was such a boost. She said, you know, I'm scared to death of going and, "What does she think about my movie?" And I'm waiting and you know, she told me, you know, she said, "Listen, I just want to tell you one thing." I said, "What?" She said, "You are a natural born filmmaker." And I was like, "Whoa." That really blew me away, you know. That gave me such a vote of confidence to continue on. And so, second year was when I started working with Spike [Spike Lee], 'cause we couldn't work in the first year 'cause we were in two separate sections. I was in section A, he was in section B. But when everybody else left we all were in one section. So, that's when we started working together. And as a cinematography major, I either wrote and directed my own films or I shot other people's films. I pretty much concentrated on just directing my stuff and shooting other people's stuff. [INT: Word.]

INT: Can you talk a little bit more about you and Spike's [Spike Lee] relationship? What was it like working together as students and then obviously as professionals?

ED: Well, it was fun 'cause, you know, when we first met first day in school, first of all there ain't too many Black kids, not too many of us in there. You know, so we kinda-- [INT: How many were there? When I was there it was three in my class, no four. How many did y'all have?] First year there was me, Spike, guy named Jim, Peter Ekpene. Yeah, there were four others besides me. And second year only Spike and me came back. And his second-year film was a movie called SARAH. It was an adaptation of a short story and it was an African American family at Thanksgiving and the Thanksgiving dinner. And the sibling rivalry that goes on, you know, between the sisters and boyfriends, you know, that are there. And all that other stuff. And it was a nice little story. We shot it at his Uncle Cliff's house. His uncle, who is the father of his cousin who is now a filmmaker in his own right, Malcolm [Malcolm D. Lee]. Malcolm was just like this little guy then, this little kid, you know, and Cliff. And so we shot it there. And I remember it was crazy 'cause, you know, we shot the dinner scenes first. You know, the Thanksgiving dinner scene because, you know, he had two turkeys made and after we got through with that, that's how we fed the Crew. You know. 'Cause that was the thing in film school man, you know. The best thing you could do is to feed your Crew. You know, that's the best thing you could do is feed your Crew, you know. Another directing student, Jim Grecco, who I shot films for at NYU, you know. Whenever we did his student films, he was from Philadelphia, his mother would come up from Philadelphia, Italian American, and she would make these amazing Italian American dishes to feed the Crew and, you know, we'd bunk out on the floor, you know, in sleeping bags and stuff like that. But she would always, you know, she made amazing pasta. So, you know, as a film student that's the best thing you could do is feed your Crew. So, we did SARAH. And that was the first time I really started to experiment with color because everything in the first year was black and white. But we were able to actually use color now. And so, I started really experimenting with, you know, reflected light and especially on black skin tones, you know, getting the warmth and stuff like that. So, SARAH was my first, you know, experimentation with that, you know, but I had also, you know, experimented with color in my still photography, you know, in D.C. [Washington D.C.] 'cause, you know, yeah, I did the medical stuff but I, you know, also shot some fashion stuff while I was there. So, I was always experimenting with light, color of light, you know, imitating photographers' work that I had seen in like French fashion magazines. There was one photographer named Guy Bourdin who was a great French fashion photographer, who would, you know, his stuff would appear in Paris Vogue and stuff like that. And there was always drama in his lighting, I think that's what really drew me to him, you know, very dramatic lighting. And kind of like surrealistic situations but really dramatic stuff. And so, I would use, you know, that stuff that I learned at Howard [Howard University] experimenting with light and color temperature and color contrast and stuff like that. And really started playing with it on Spike's [Spike Lee] first film, SARAH. So, that was that one.

ED: And then, my second-year film was a black and white piece, I shot it in black and white because right around that time, Spike [Spike Lee] and I were like, the movie that was blowing us away was RAGING BULL. We were big Scorsese fanatics, big Scorsese fans, you know. And RAGING BULL came out in 1980 and, you know, it just blew us away, you know. And so, I did my film which was also an adaptation of a short story called “Fare to Crown Point”, and shot that in black and white. And then third year, I was able to shoot Spike's graduate thesis film, which was JOE’S BED-STUY BARBERSHOP [JOE’S BED-STUY BARBERSHOP: WE CUT HEADS]. And, you know, that was also an experiment, you know, in color 'cause it was all location, but we also shot... he was able to get this one barbershop that would allow us to shoot there on Sundays. You know, we would have complete control of the barbershop and it had these big picture windows and the opposite side of the street, you know, would always get direct sunlight, you know, and it would always like bounce in. So, for me it was always a challenge and a experiment in available light, but also mixing my light with it, you know. And I shot a few films for some other filmmakers which were really cool, but JOE’S BED-STUY BARBERSHOP actually got me my first feature. [INT: And what was that?] It was BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET. 'Cause Spike won a Student Academy award for it, for JOE’S BED-STUY, but it also showed at a film festival called New Films - New Directors that played in New York. And John Sayles saw it. And I got this phone call out of the blue one day. Now, I was recently married. My wife just told me-- [INT: How old are you? How old are you at this time?] This is about '83 [1983]. So, I was born in '51 [1951]. Okay. So, you know, graduated from NYU in '82 [1982]. I was doing occasional music videos. I had actually started doing a series of promotional films for the archdiocese of Brooklyn as a Cinematographer. And actually hired Spike as a sound man. He actually did sound on these things. 'Cause, you know, a lot of people don't, you know, one thing that wasn't known about Spike or kept kinda like on the downlow was that, you know, he was a good sound man, you know.

ED: And so, you know, my wife informed me that she was pregnant, you know, and she was working. And I was working intermittently, so I said, "Oh god, I guess I better get myself a real job." So, I really started thinking seriously about going out to get a cab driver's medallion, to become a taxi driver. I was really seriously thinking about it. And then, I got this phone call out of the blue. A young lady named Peggy Rajski calls me up and she says, "Hi, I'm working for, I don't know if you ever heard of him, he's a filmmaker named John Sayles." I said, "Yes, I know who John Sayles is." John Sayles was the preeminent independent filmmaker at that time. You know, he even had a picture on the cover of American Film magazine, you know. And he had done RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS 7 and LIANNA, and he had done the film, BABY IT’S YOU. And so, and she says, "Hey, you know, John would like to talk to you, you know, he's planning a movie called THE BROTHER WHO FELL TO EARTH." And she said, "It's kind of like a Roger Corman-esque science fiction film, but you know, he'd love to talk to you about it." I said, "Oh yeah, sure." So, I went over and talked with John. Peggy Rajski was married to Josh Mostel, who was Zero Mostel's son. And so, met in their apartment. And he told me about this movie called THE BROTHER WHO FELL TO EARTH. And he had not written one word of script, but he told me the whole story. Sat me down and told me the whole story. And I'm loving it. And he says, "So, have you ever shot 35?" I lied and said, "Yes." I mean, I knew I could do it because I AC'd on a student project at NYU that was 35, you know. And, you know, the mechanics are the same, it's just the film size is different, you know. And the millimeters are different. So, I knew I could do it. And plus, I was gonna have a couple of friends of mine as AC [Assistant Cameraperson] and stuff like that. You know, to help me get through it. So, I said, "Yeah," you know, I lied and said, "Yeah." And so, I got the gig. And it was a 24-day schedule; four, six-day weeks. Yeah. And we were gonna be shooting mostly in Harlem, you know, with some shooting down in the Wall Street area at night. And it was running and gunning and it was interesting, you know. And the thing about it is that John wrote it and directed it and co-produced it. His lady, Maggie Renzi, was the Producer on it. And, you know, it was working for deferred, you know. You know, you get a little bit of money now, you get the rest of your payment later. And usually when that happens, you don't see the rest of it. You just say, "Oh, okay, this is my chance, I don't care," you know. But we shot for 24 days. It was really interesting, it was really crazy. The main set was a bar up in Harlem. And great Cast, a Black Actor named Steve James, beautiful brother who's gone from us now. [INT: Oh, I'm sorry.] Some really good Actors, you know, it was really cool. And John did some acting in it. John and David Strathairn, 'cause David Strathairn played John's partner. They were two bounty hunters, interstellar bounty hunters who were there tracking down the brother. And by this time they decided it wasn't gonna be called THE BROTHER WHO FELL TO EARTH, it was gonna be called THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET.

ED: They [John Sayles] changed the title to BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANEAT. And so what was interesting was that I had to... whenever John was in front of the camera I found myself in a position of being the Director. You know, and there were several scenes where I had to, you know, it's the two of them in the frame and John's in the frame and you know, he's saying, "How was that?" I had to say, "Well, let's try a little bit of this, try a little bit of that." And it was the first of several times where I was the DP [Director of Photography] on a film where the Director was also acting in a lead role. And, you know, it was a chance to really try some stuff like, you know, John was saying, you know, he wanted to hire a Choreographer to try and come up with a weird way for the bounty hunters to move. And, you know, and so I kinda suggested, "Well, what if we shot everything backwards?" I said, "What if we staged it backwards but then in editorial we flip the film," you know, instead of doing it as an optical, 'cause we only had about 200,000 dollars to make, you know, so as few opticals as possible, flip the film so that everything's going normal but your body movements would be what was different. So, you know, that was interesting 'cause as DP and operator I also had to... to me, the best way to do it was to hang the camera upside down, shoot it, and then have the film flipped in editorial, you know. But we would stage everything backwards, so instead of them walking into a bar and sitting down, they would start sitting down and stand up and walk backwards, and we had the doors on strings, you know, to open up when they go outside, you know. That kind of stuff. We even had a scene where they're walking out of this office, it's shot from across the street, they're walking out of this office and then walking down the street and there's cars passing by and we see this guy who's watching them from the shadows. So, we staged the whole thing backwards, you know, the guy watching them from the shadows, they walk backwards, the cars are going backwards down the street. The dead giveaway you can see the backup lights, you know. You know, the red backup lights if you're really looking carefully. But, you know, it was fun. You know, it really gave it a really weird feel.