From: "John K. Bates" <[j--n] at [humnet.ucla.edu]> Date: 27 May 1994 16:27:43 PST Subject: Forwarded: Interview with Rachel From: Self <john> To: [W L LGAR 06] at [Uctvax.UCT.AC.ZA] Subject: Interview with Rachel Reply-to: [J--n] at [HUMnet.ucla.edu] Date: 27 Apr 1994 14:09:39 This is a rough sketch of a quick conversation I had with Rachel Talalay, the director of the upcoming Tank Girl Movie. Once again, I ask that you respect my copyright on this particular stuff and don't go reprinting it all over. I am working on articles so I can get paid and quit my day job! The following is (c) 1994 John K. Bates. I got flamed for doing that [calling interactive messaging e-mail] I got flamed for doing that. But I thought tha I used to be a computer programmer in the early 80's before there were even laptops and personal computers. I mean, I thought I got close, with Ghost in the Machine, to some sort of legitimacy but no. Next thing I know I'm being flamed on the Net. RE: Alt.fan.tank-girl Rachel has a penpal, called Tank-Boy who is on America OnLine who is a fan of TG and has a TG tattoo, of which he sent her a photo. He has been actively sending her suggestions. She gets e-mail, fun e-mail. I don't know how people find her. "Maybe I should set up a Tank-Girl address." [The address is [TankGirl 1] at [aol.com] e-mail her] The only thing I know about Wired is that they had TG as Wired, which was the coolest thing for me. It actually helped me. It was just at the time that the studio was making the final decision and I got to call them up and say, 'We just got "wired," this is the best, I mean, we're wired!" we just better not be tired before we come out, that's what I have to watch out for. Usenet news post. Rachel talked with her mouth full the whole time, so we couldn't give you a sound file... Probably the major issue of this whole event is the Hollywoodization of something that is a definite underground... The first way to address that is to look at B&B which I first saw absolutely on a midnight show, and you could have knocked me over if you told me this is gonna be a main thing on MTV. It's not that I compare Tank-Girl in any way to B&B except in terms of an UGC that's kept its integrity while still being able to be on in a different format. What our aim is is to keep the outrageousness, its to keep the uniqueness, and to keep the spirit of Tank-Girl. Obviously when you have a Hollywood studio behind you and putting up a lot of money to make a movie you have to tell a story. And there's a tendency in the C not to have much of a story. One of the things we had to do is add a more conventional story, because it's an hour and a half to two hours and people like to follow a story. So that was one of the big challenges. But what I'm trying to do on the other side is to keep the cutting edgeness within the story. And I think that we've accomplished a lot in terms of trying to keep that edge and keep her Tank-Girl. And I think for me the experience that's most similar to this is the time I produced "Hairspray" and we ended up with this PG rating. And John Waters said, "Oh my God, what's gonna happen? Are all my fans gonna say, 'what has happened to John?' because Hairspray had this sweetness. and are they gonna kill me? We watched the fans say, 'No, we love this, too, because it's still a John Waters film, it's still got all the great things about John. So that was really good for me to see, is that there are a lot of different textures and ways you can handle these issues without having to be "unacceptable" in that Hollywood way. But yes, of course, there are concerns every day about the Hz of it. [So it's a concern that you're aware of...] extremely aware of. [That's good to hear, I think a lot of people are going to hold you to it.] I think we've tried to push the envelope as much as we can. She still has a relationship with Booga... We're trying to keep that in there. That doesn't mean we plan on hard core kangaroo sex... One of the things about it is that Jamie is doing a lot of our conceptual art. We asked him to redesign the kangaroo-men so that we could use actors. I didn't want to do a TMNT rubber suits. I thought that was wrong. So he gladly redesigned them so that we could appreciate the actors in them. Stan Winston is doing the makeup for them. Stan just said, "These are classic characters I wanna do this, I wanna do this." [Jurassic Park, Predator, Edward Scissorhands, Etc.] He called and I said we don't have that much money. I was like, 'We can't afford Stan, what are we doing?' and he came back and said I love these characters and I want to do this no queation. and I was like 'we still won't be able to afford this.' But he really bent over backwards 'cause he said 'This is a minor classic.' and I said, 'Now you've really jinxed me. having to live up to that expectation.' [I feel like it's a pretty committed team already. The TG spirit seems to be pervading people.] Cause it's so great! Not everybody gets it, not everybody gets the script, and that's how I know its successful. If everybody got the script it would be edgeless and I'd know I had a problem. Sometimes the guys are threatened by it... the older agents. Like What is this? Why are the only good guys in the script mutant Kangaroos? 'Yeah,' I go isn't that cool? It's true isn't it? "It's really hard for me to imagine a movie doing it justice unless it's animated...how are they gonna pull this off. that why we have Jamie involved in doing conceptual designs. I don't know what 'doing it justice is, but I think I 'get it...' and we're going to push as hard as we can. I think having Jamie's involvement and his wacky ideas coming out every day will help us. It is a big problem. Take the fact that you've got JG SG and TG and you want to put them all in the same frame. Well, that's easy in a comic book, but it's really problematic in live action. It's a tough challenge, but we're tryiing. We're doing some animation sequences in the movie. Jamie and Alan are going to help write and design them... That's one of the things, occasionally I feel like I'm so limited live action that on of the ideas I had was to do some animated stuff just to get that chaos into the movie. It was a big challenge to figure out how to include JG and SG who I absolutely love, in this new world. Jamie and Alan wanted Christian Glover, but he passed. It's hard to get any actor to do a part that requires this much make-up, 'cause anyone that's been around enough knows it's absolute hell to do this kind of make-up. So unless you're the lead in Dracula it's quite unappealing to do a make-uped part. It just means that you're hot and incredibly uncomfortable, and you have to sit in the make-up chair for four hours every day and you don't get yourself seen properly. [but it seems like a great challenge as an actor] yeah, it's just the difference between a Christian Glover saying. 'I don't need to do this.' and a lesser known actor saying, 'wow what an opportunity.' Will H&M be making appearances in the movie. Jamie has asked and Alan has not. What Jamie does depends on how gutsy he is. But they won't be making the kind of appearances they make in their own comics. I haven't been gutsy enough for them to walk in and rewrite the comic mid frame, yet! We save those concepts for the sequel. [Maybe they can put themselves into the animated sequence.] I keep worrying every time I get the next Deadline that there's going to be a charicature of me destroying the project. I've been waiting for that. Last month they lampooned the whole movie idea, which I think is good, because I think we should never take ourselves too seriously... I get the occsional NMoES which is neat, I hardly consider myself a celebrity yet... It's cool when those messages come out of the blue. [the Net is such a new social element.] I find it really interesting to meet people out of the blue. people send you msgs that give you more exposure to the rest of the world, esp when you live in this wierd, insulated LA incredibly wierd world. I'll get a msg from someone who'll say, I just moved to Seattle, I work in a greeting card company. I'll say, that's cool. I like to hear about who I'm hearing from.So usually when people have e-mailed me to ask me a question the first thing I ask is sort of who are you... Also, I also learn a lot when I ask them what they do on the Net. Why are you a part of an on-line service and what do you do on it? I have very specific things I do and I'm not all that adventurous, mostly because my time is so limited. [what is it you do on-line] Well, e-mail is my favorite thing... [I think we all agree on that do you use it for friends, business?] I use it for friends and the new people I've met. Not for business at all. I keep my eye on the stock market and I'm obsessive about the baseball scores. I'm off and on six times a day to check how the Orioles are doing. I check the comic book and movie forums. The movie forum is really interesting for me, because I'll go see a movie I don't like and it'll be doing business and it's interesting to see what people write, how much they fell in love with a movie and it helps you realize when you're totally of out of touch with the general audience. What you do instead is these test screening and you get this one group of people telling you all about your movie and in LA it feels like you've got the professional movie going audience who's done these test screenings so many times and it's so much more raw on the Net. Orioles-that's the Baltimore girl in me. The new stadium is so cool. There are cameo possibilities. TG has a big RR following so we've gotten a lot of calls saying I'm just a big TG fan and I want to do a part in the movie. Courtney Love was the first person who contacted us out of the blue. Music is obviously a big deal, but it's too early to know what will be included. But I've got Jamie and Alan's record collection now. Do this for the CD mag. I'm still the sell out, no matter how hard I try, or how right I get it I'll be the Hwood sellout. It's hard! So I try to keep as much legit wierdness as I can add to it, you're walking a fine line. What'll be interesting will be when we've finished it and we're doing test screenings and does this line work or do we need to get more wierd or less wierd? The hardest stuff, I learned with JW, is the stuff that the cool audience likes the best and the conservative audience likes the least, so you've got 30 people who like this scene the most and 30 people who hate this scene. So, with John, we kept that stuff in, 'cause that's what it's all about. [Think it'll be tougher with TG?] It's just finding that balance. If you're boring them, that's what has to go out. It's the stuff that gets a zero. People are just siting there in silence and it's not a rapt silence, that's what has to go. [Tape finishes...] JB (@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@)*(@) John K. Bates (310) 206-2004 UCLA Humanities Computing Facility