Tales from the Warner Bros. Lot (2013) - full transcript
In honor of 90 years of Warner Bros., viewers learn the history of the Hollywood studio and are given a behind-the-scenes tour of the studio grounds (including the famous backlot). Actors, directors, and others share anecdotes from their experiences with Warner Bros. over the years.
MACY: I remember
I walked out of my trailer one time, ha...
...and I saw four guys
walk out of a sound stage...
...and they were clearly Martians.
And they had white BVD T-shirts on...
...but from the waist down,
they had green scales and sort of fish feet.
And so they flopped over to a rail...
...and they had scales on their head
and sort of these weird noses.
And they all put a cigarette in their mouths,
carefully...
...and sat there smoking,
talking about their agents...
...in these fish feet
with white BVD T-shirts.
And I thought, "I love this business."
Only at Warner Bros.
are you gonna see that.
FREEMAN:
It's a great studio.
If you just go back
over the history of the films...
...that this studio has championed,
has made...
...many of them are classics.
First time I came on the Warner Bros. lot
was as a script reader.
I would come down, pick up my scripts
or my novel to read over the weekend.
They'd give you a pass
for a couple of hours.
I would walk around the backlot
and check out some of the famous sets...
...and just absorb
some of the great history...
...and dream about, you know, coming here
one day to actually make my own films.
There is a respect that you have,
that I have...
...when you walk into a place like this.
Like, how can you take it for granted?
All the people who would love to be in
your shoes, who'd love to be sitting here...
...or literally sitting here
talking about this studio.
Being on this lot and looking around
these streets and thinking:
"Wow, this is where they made those
movies that I was in love with as a kid."
I came over here in the '50s.
I was very impressed with the lot.
Its beautiful stages
all had a lot of ivy growing on them.
And there was kind of a certain character
to them that they didn't have across town.
When you come to the gate
at Warner Bros., you feel like--
Now you're really where they make movies,
real movies.
GILBERT: This is one of the biggest lots
in Hollywood.
We have 110 acres on our main lot.
We have a ranch facility
located five minutes from here...
...that's another 35 acres.
But the lot is rather densely packed.
We have 35 sound stages, total...
...which is the most in any studio
in Hollywood.
Thirty here on the main lot
and five at the ranch.
About 35 acres of backlot,
lots of office buildings.
It's a very densely packed 110 acres.
KAHN: Warner Bros. Studios is a studio
that has a great story.
And the story does start
with the four Warner brothers.
And a lot of people don't know
that there were four Warner brothers...
...four actual brothers,
that started this studio.
The brothers were Polish immigrants...
...that moved to the States in hopes
of new opportunities and education.
The first thing they did when they got here
was started getting into business.
The most inventive brother of them all
was Sam Warner.
Sam had traveled by train
to do other jobs...
...and in one of the jobs...
...he saw a movie being projected
on the outside of a building.
And he thought, "What is that?"
And then when he talked to the guy
who owned the projector...
...and found out what movies were,
he thought:
"Maybe this is the business
we should get into."
KAHN:
The films that people were watching...
...were really more or less
reality programming, I guess, if you will.
You know, there wasn't a plot, you know.
We would see people dancing on camera...
...or maybe gathering
by the train station.
These clips that would show people
in everyday life.
But the American populace
was just taken by this.
And the brothers saw this.
The family scrabbled together
enough money to buy everything...
...including selling the family horse,
and they bought this projector...
...and they traveled around
from town to town.
When they ran out of films,
they moved to the next town.
At that point in time, they also found
other people who were showing films.
And they would buy those films.
And then they thought,
"Maybe we should make films as well."
They did what a lot of other
moviemakers did in the early days.
They moved west.
Harry was the one who kept reinvesting
the money, kept making the money.
But is was Sam who really got the brothers
to the next level at every point...
...I mean, until he passed away.
Meaning, he's the one who got
the brothers into movies to begin with.
And he also is the one who convinced them
that they should do sound films.
Going back to the best of my memory,
it was 1925...
...when Western Electric
and Vitaphone...
...had the technology that they were trying
to convince studios to use.
Vitaphone was really,
for all intents and purposes...
...a disk with a needle
that was synchronized...
...to the belt drive of conventional
soundless projectors in that era.
So they would put the needle
on the start point on the album...
...they would put the film
on the start point...
...and lock the two together,
and off you go.
At the time, Sam Warner
was very interested in this technology.
And worked off with his brother Harry...
...to convince him to use it
on upcoming productions.
And ultimately,
Harry was swayed to go along with it.
They went to production
and they used it for musical pieces...
...on Don Juan, and then in 1927,
The Jazz Singer...
...where a little bit of Al Jolson's voice
was the spoken word.
[CHEERING]
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
You ain't heard nothing yet.
Sam never lived to see his film sound
come to life or fruition, really.
And Jack was the one
that really pioneered it from there on.
As they started to procure theaters
throughout the country...
...they were all equipped
with this technology.
So it was driven by Jack at that point.
Jazz Singer was a huge hit...
...changed the movie industry forever,
changed the Warner brothers forever.
With the money that they were making,
they were able to buy theater chains.
They were able to buy
First National Pictures...
...which was the premier
silent movie company at that time.
And with First National,
they acquired this lot.
I had an insight into Jack that most actors
didn't have because I was a tennis player.
And every weekend,
we had tennis at Jack's house.
And I came to know him,
to feel what he was like underneath...
...and to be very sympathetic with him
because of that...
...because of knowing him that well.
And I liked him very, very much.
I mean, he was very good to me
while I was here.
I won't deny that he was ridiculous...
...and he thought he was Jack Benny
and all of that.
That was not the real man.
He also had an ostensible contempt
for actors.
I mean, he called the biggest stars,
"Oh, that stupid son of a bitch."
You know, this, that.
Like, I mean, he just disrespect.
But I understood that too
because he was awed by them.
From where he came,
and to be their boss...
...and to be telling them what to do
and everything like that...
...was not familiar ground for him.
Many years after I was here,
they previewed a picture of Warren Beatty.
It took over Stage 1.
And there was a huge luncheon.
They invited all the old Warner stars
from before that era.
Pat O'Brien and Robinson
and those people.
And, of course, they all got up to speak
and they all made hay out of Jack Warner.
They all, you know, told Warner jokes
and made fun of him.
And he let himself in for that.
I mean, he was wide-open.
But there wasn't a nice thing said
about him.
Well, I had never met Bette Davis
at that point...
...and I happened to be sitting at the table
with her at this occasion.
And I liked her so much.
I mean, I--She was--
Well, who needs to say anything
about Bette Davis?
Anyway, she got up and she said,
"Papa--"
She called him Papa.
After all of these slams
and everything else, said, "Papa...
...you gave me my first chance
in this business...
...and I've always loved you
and I always will.
Thank you. God bless you."
And that was so stunning, you know,
after the usual reception of Jack Warner.
But it was--I've never gotten over it.
This was the rear entrance
to the main administration building.
Barry Meyer's office.
Jack Warner's old office is right upstairs.
It's where the senior management
of the studio resides.
Headquarters of Warner Bros.
right here.
This is called the Rose Garden.
It's quite a beautiful setting.
It's very serene.
Roses in bloom,
trees that are 90 years old.
It's quite a pretty setting.
Far into the lot, the arches are where
the Wardrobe Department was.
Both floors were wardrobe storage.
The downstairs under the arch
was a pass-through window...
...where they would have the sign,
name of the movie...
...and actors would go up
and have their wardrobe issued to them.
As far as the look,
we have tried to preserve it.
The entry has been moderned up...
...but we tried to make it as consistent
to the architecture of the time as possible...
...using metal doors and moldings
to match the old ones.
We have some great artists here
and great craftspeople.
You can't find these windows but our metal
shop could certainly recreate them for us.
McGRORY:
This is the Mill at Warner Bros. Studios.
The Mill was built around 1937.
It's about 120,000 square feet.
It's a fully self-contained construction
environment where we build all the sets.
Design them, construct them,
and then install them on the stages.
In the Mill we have--We have paint...
...staff, metal, scenic arts,
large-format printing...
...large sign tech, the Sign Department.
We also do electrical, plumbing, AC.
It's all here in the Mill.
PIKE: This is the scenic art loft.
It's the Scenic Art Department.
This has been here since 1937
when they built the Mill.
I've been here for 22 years and it hasn't
changed in the time that I've been here.
And I've seen pictures of the room
and it looks exactly the same.
Other than the guys
wearing suits and ties painting, which is--
I can't even imagine doing.
We are the last
and one of the biggest departments.
We have the most frame space
and we're it.
We used to hand-paint
all the billboards in front.
And it was done in oil paint,
off a scaffolding.
It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of work.
It was actually a very physical job.
You know, oil paint is thick.
It doesn't spread easily.
You literally, if you have, like, a sky blend
and you have three color blues...
...you have to work that paint
back and forth until it's smooth.
But I really enjoyed it.
And I did that, for, like, my first
10 or 12 years here, almost exclusively.
And then the digital age came
and now we're printing them.
McGRORY:
This is the VUTEK printer...
...one of the larger printers
in the industry right now.
It's a 5-meter printer.
And we do all of our large-format printing
on here.
We do billboards, backdrops,
other scenic elements.
As you can see right now, we're doing
one for one of our TV productions.
It's a day shot.
This is still the current technology
we're using.
It's a really great workhorse printer
for us.
On average, we can have about 200 to 300
people working in the Mill at any given time.
We're one of last studios to have
all the services in-house.
Many of the studios have downsized
and have gone and outsourced that.
Yes, I'm a third-generation
Warner Bros. employee.
My grandfather was a cameraman
for Jack Warner.
Then my father,
he was in construction, dispatcher.
And then myself,
I work in construction as well.
This is a wonderful place to work.
They really do care about the employees.
You find people here that are on a day call.
They're on a day call for almost 30 years.
So it's a great studio to work for.
Original sound stages were built
in 1926.
And at that time
they were Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Every time they built a new sound stage,
they changed the numbers...
...keep could them in chronological order,
zigging and zagging through the studios.
So Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4
are now Stages 10, 11, 12 and 14.
No 13 because that's unlucky,
so we jumped that one.
The first four stages were very big,
because they were primarily for movies.
When television came around,
they put walls between--
In the middle of the stages and turned
them into two smaller stages...
...so that they could double up
on the space for television.
But the walls are removable so they could
take them down when need be...
...and turn it back into a big film stage.
Each one of the stages have a small tank
that they can open up.
And you can either do water scenes in there
or have staircases...
...going down from the original set.
So all the sound stages have those pits,
they call them.
Stage 16,
my favorite sound stage on the lot.
We call it the ocean with a roof.
The whole floor is removable.
And then below that,
it goes down about 25 feet.
It can hold 2 and half million gallons
of water.
And in the movie Perfect Storm, that
George Clooney did with Mark Wahlberg...
...the entire 72-foot fishing vessel
was being tossed around...
...by the hurricane-force winds
in that sound stage.
They had about 15-foot waves
hitting that ship for about three months.
Built in 1935.
It was just a baby
when a movie was being shot in there...
...called Cain and Mabel.
And Marion Davies was a very
high-maintenance actress, shall we say?
She was convinced that the set that they
were gonna build in there was too small.
Jack Warner suggested
to William Randolph Hearst...
...that if Marion wanted
the sound stage bigger--
Because Marion, at that time,
was his girlfriend.
He said, "Well, you know, you could
always pay for it and then we'd do it.
And Hearst said, "Yes."
Now because of the shooting schedule...
...they didn't have time to do the normal
thing, rip the roof off and build it up.
They did something that today you could
never do because it's dangerous.
Literally surrounded the building
with people...
...and they drilled holes
into the base of the building.
In the foundation, they put steel plates.
And under the plates,
they wedged hand jacks...
...like a jack of a car.
And they put big bass drummers
on each corner of the building.
When those guys got a rhythm going
on the drum...
...everybody at the jacks would crank the
building up a couple of inches at a time.
About a foot off the ground,
they put railroad tiles underneath.
They jacked it up another foot and
they kept crisscrossing the railroad tiles.
In essence, making legs.
It kept raising the sound stage
up and up and up to its current height...
...which is actually 65 feet in the air.
And Jack was a very happy man,
because at that time...
...he had the largest sound stage
in the world.
I've been a constant tenant
for over 25 years.
I kind of moved down
this kind of corridor to here.
Stories I was told--
Some I researched, some I was told.
The story was
that William Randolph Hearst...
...at a company
called Cosmopolitan Pictures...
...whose principal artist
was Marion Davies.
And he had a big facility structure house,
more or less, at MGM...
...that was her dressing room.
But it was where he would go
when he was in town...
...where he had access
to his vast publishing empire.
There's famous stories about
a big luncheon for George Bernard Shaw.
There are pictures of everybody
at this luncheon.
Apparently, there was a disagreement
at some point...
...between Louis Mayer
and William Randolph Hearst.
And the story was that Julia Morgan...
...who was his architect,
who designed San Simeon for him...
...actually moved that building,
that structure, in, like, two or three parts...
...to this site where we are right now.
It was a very elegant kind of, you know,
Mediterranean structure.
And they used it for various things.
It was kind of a private home
in the middle of the lot.
Well, the story that I also was told...
...is that when his deal finally ended here,
Hearst moved that house again...
...to a site on Beverly Glen,
which is in West Los Angeles.
When that building left here,
there was kind of a field here.
At that time, Jack Warner
was very infatuated with Frank Sinatra.
He had made a picture
called Ocean's Eleven...
...which has gone on
to live other lives as well.
And he really wanted him
to be on the Warner lot.
And, actually, this building
was built for him in the early '60s.
It had a very Asian style.
There was grass cloth on the walls,
Frank's desk was right here.
Apparently out there
is a rubber tree plant.
There's a song called "High Hopes"
where they mention a rubber tree.
It's a rubber tree out there.
And there was a piano here.
I mean, I've seen pictures of it when Frank
had it, and he had it for about 10 years.
And this whole area was his--
It was called Artanis,
which was "Sinatra" spelled backwards.
He left and First Artists was created.
The principals of that
were Barbra Streisand...
...and Steve McQueen and Sidney Poitier.
It was put together
by Freddie Fields at CMA...
...for all his big stars
to have their own company.
And that was in here too
for about 10 years.
And then when that dissolved,
Spielberg moved in and he was here...
...through the big kind of run
of his Warners pictures.
And then Dick Donner moved in.
And when Dick Donner left, we moved in.
I feel I don't even know a time when
I wasn't here but, of course, that's fantasy.
I've been here, on and off, since--
Really, since the late '70s.
Warner Bros. during World War II
was making war movies...
...or putting war elements into every film.
With Casablanca,
the studio knew they had two things.
They knew they had Humphrey Bogart...
...who the studio realized
was going to become a romantic star...
...and they knew they had something
really special with Casablanca...
...because it was a war story
without the combat.
What happens
with an international mix of people...
...in a foreign country
as the Nazis are closing in...
...and trying to take over the world.
And you had a hero
who was a reluctant hero.
And you had a fallen woman
who was the female romantic lead.
And you had the upstanding
knight in shining armor...
...Paul Henreid in his white suit.
And you had an international mix
of people...
...who were fighting the Nazis
within Vichy France's Casablanca.
You can say Citizen Kane is a great movie,
but this is the Hollywood movie.
Citizen Kane is an experimental film
that just is crackerjack.
But Casablanca has all the elements
of a Hollywood movie.
The big stars, the big music,
the big sets...
...the big lighting, the big adventure,
the big romance...
...all in one film,
and all shot here at Warner Bros...
...except for a couple of quick shots
at an airport.
RICCA: There've been a lot of very
romantic movies shot on this lot...
...but probably this is the ultimate
romantic movie, Casablanca.
This little storefront,
which is now a bookstore right now...
...is the last standing set of Casablanca.
This is the actual set.
It's the same one from 1942.
There's a very quick but memorable
flashback scene in Casablanca...
...where Humphrey Bogart and
Ingrid Bergman are seated right out here...
...at a little outdoor caf? in Paris.
And they're listening to the announcements
of the soldiers coming closer to Paris.
It was shot right here.
So this is the exact spot.
And we get people on the tour
who just are in awe of this location...
...because it's still here
after all those years.
Jack Warner got into television
at the request of the president of ABC.
And what Jack thought was
he would kind of do what Walt Disney did.
He would use television
to promote his theatrical films.
He still wasn't convinced that the studio
could make money off of television.
The first season was actually
three television shows...
...based on Warner Bros. feature films.
One was Casablanca,
the other was Kings Row.
So you had a major World War II
romantic film...
...and you had a major
American soap opera.
How could these two fail?
And he threw a Western in
as the third show...
...and it was called Cheyenne.
And Cheyenne was the one that took off.
The guy who had developed Cheyenne
was a writer named Roy Huggins...
...and Roy had written a detective novel
that had been published.
When they were looking
for something different, he said:
"Well, I can give you a detective show."
And so 77 Sunset Strip
became the second big genre...
...that Warners did in television.
ZIMBALIST:
I didn't wanna do it.
I didn't wanna do a series, be in television.
I'd done that in New York...
...and I came out here
because I thought it was movies.
They showed me a little clause
in my contract...
...that stipulated
that I had to do television.
So I made this pilot, 77 Sunset Strip.
Everybody loved it, we loved it.
And it was an entr?e to all kinds
of situations and places and so forth.
It was a wonderful feeling
to be in a show like that...
...that just made the world happy.
And it did, you know.
Everybody was crazy about it
and so were we.
One of the things that disenchanted
Jack Warner about television...
...was in the '30s when Jimmy Cagney
was upset with his contract...
...he had to fight Jimmy Cagney.
And when Bogart was fighting,
he had to fight Bogart.
With the television stars...
...where some of them
were being paid 75 dollars a week...
...all of a sudden, all the TV actors
were coming at Jack Warner saying:
"We want a raise."
And so Jack was kind of losing interest
in television...
...because all of a sudden,
he wasn't fighting one war...
...he was fighting five or six wars.
And the other thing that happened, because
they only had one customer, ABC...
...if ABC rejected a show, that was it,
they were done.
And so when the ABC series
started to die out...
...that was kind of the end
of Warner Bros. in television.
James Dean was my idol.
I was 15 at that time and, you know,
I was doing plays in high school...
...and I knew I was gonna pursue a career
as soon as I got out of high school.
I had no intention of going to college
and so be it.
Somebody told me about this young actor
that had just come out in East of Eden.
I'd never heard of him
and I went to see it.
I remember
I went to the Saturday matinee...
...and I saw him
and it was a double feature.
I couldn't tell you what the other film was,
but I had no interest.
But I could hardly stand up.
I saw the film three times that day
and I could not get over him.
I was just never the same.
None of us were.
Even people
that were not interested at all in acting...
...were affected by him, you know?
Boys and girls, rich and poor,
black and white, old and young...
...everybody was just absolutely captivated
by this extraordinary genius.
This young genius
that was gone at age 24.
He changed everything about...
...what I had perceived an actor might do.
You know, film acting, what it was about,
because he really transcended it.
It was about behavior.
He just absolutely mesmerized me
and became my hero.
And I couldn't believe
that he was already gone...
...as I was discovering him.
I worked on the pilot
for Harry O with David Janssen.
And I worked with Sal Mineo.
He and I played villains together.
I drove him nuts, asking him
to tell me about James Dean.
And he told me one story here that
Dean was practicing his makeup for Giant.
And he came walking across the lot.
Sal told me he was going
the other direction.
Old guy said, "How you doing, man?"
Sal said, "I'm fine, how you doing?"
Then he heard this laugh and he turned
around and it was James Dean.
He was in his older makeup for Giant.
And he'd fooled Sal Mineo.
And he and I worked on this pilot...
...and he finished earlier than I,
a day earlier...
...and he came by just to say goodbye.
And I told him what a pleasure it was
and I hoped that I hadn't bothered him...
...asking him so much about James Dean.
And he said, "No, no."
He said--And you know what he said?
"He'd have liked you."
And I broke into tears.
I thought, "Wow, Sal Mineo thinks
that James Dean would have liked me."
I thought, "Okay."
ROTH: We know all about the legend
of Warner Bros. animation.
We know the legend of Mel Blanc and these
brilliant characters, these iconic characters.
We are well aware and are huge fans
of the original Merrie Melodies.
And Looney Tunes,
we are the gatekeepers of all the product...
...that originally came from that library
of brilliant product.
GEER: Way back in the '30s,
it was Merrie Melodies...
...and then they introduced
Looney Tunes.
There was a man, Leon Schlesinger,
who ran and owned Pacific Title.
And Schlesinger apparently
was a pretty wealthy man.
And he'd helped finance Warners
when they made The Jazz Singer.
They owed him one.
So he went back to Warner and said:
"Let us be your Animation Department."
So he had then brought three
or four people from the old Disney crew.
Friz Freleng was one of them.
Chuck Jones.
There was Bob Clampett, Tex Avery.
And these guys did all kinds
of amazing things with animation...
...that hasn't been done since then,
really.
And Avery said,
"We're gonna make another rabbit, guys.
Draw me your picture
of what the rabbit looks like."
So the different animators
were drawing their idea...
...of what the rabbit should look like.
And there was a guy
named Bugs Hardaway.
That was his nickname, was Bugs.
So as he was going out to lunch,
he dropped his drawing on Avery's desk.
Bugs' rabbit.
That become Bugs Bunny.
Warner Bros. had been absolutely
in the animation business...
...from the '30s all the way
until the late '60s.
And then at that point, there was a rest.
And it wasn't until 1980...
...where Warner Bros. Animation
was restarted.
And what also happened is,
as the Warner Bros. Studio grew...
...and the company grew,
so did our library.
So when we started off
with the Looney Tunes...
...eventually we were also able to add
the Hanna-Barbera library...
...the MGM animation library
and the DC Comic characters...
...to probably one of the largest
animation libraries out there.
You can feel how many people came
before us...
...that worked on these movies
and cartoons.
And that we have the opportunity
to be here in their footsteps is incredible.
ZIMBALIST:
This studio was my home.
I loved it and I do still.
I mean, I don't come here anymore.
I'm a stranger.
I don't know most of the buildings here.
But it was my home, and those days...
...when it was just Warner Bros.,
it was just Jack Warner.
See, I came to Warners
right after the big rift with his brothers.
They collaborated,
they hatched this plot...
...where everybody would sell his stock
and then buy it back cheap.
Only trouble was, when the brothers
came to buy it back...
...it was all in Jack's hands.
And Jack kicked the brothers out.
Later when Seven Arts
bought Warner Bros...
...they came to Jack Warner and said:
"We're going to give you
$34 million for the studio...
...and you'll still have your office,
you'll still run things, you'll be the boss.
We'll just be the owner, that's all."
The irony with Seven Arts is that
Eliot Hyman had bought the rights...
...to Warner Bros. films for television.
And with the money
that he made off of that...
...he then bought Warner Bros. in 1967.
So the irony is
Jack sold the films to him...
...and then Jack ended up
selling the studio to him.
Father and son team, Eliot and Ken Hyman,
didn't stay at Warner Bros. that long.
I think their tenure here
was only about 19 months.
Seven Arts were distributors.
They hadn't been really producers.
They were a distribution company.
It was an odd period in time
because Jack Warner's power base...
...was reasonably on the demise.
He was developing 1776, the musical,
as a film...
...and I don't know the deal
or the agreement.
But he was retained
as the vice president of the company.
ZIMBALIST:
Well, a few weeks after the thing...
...no piece of business
passed his desk again.
He never saw anything.
And finally, they asked him to leave
and he just got out.
RICCA:
The backlot, it's 14 different sets right now.
It used to be much bigger,
but some of the production offices...
...have taken over spots.
Well, we're here on New York Street
and it can be any city really.
I've seen it transformed into London,
into San Francisco.
But primarily, we see this as New York,
sometimes Chicago.
A lot of the gangster movies
were shot along here.
There was always somebody in a car,
blowing out windows with a Tommy gun.
The movie theater over here
was in A Star Is Born with Judy Garland.
Opening scene
of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?...
...with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford,
when they zoom in, that was here.
One of the biggest sci-fi movies
of the '80s, Blade Runner...
...with Harrison Ford and Daryl Hannah,
they transformed this entire street...
...into futuristic Los Angeles.
Lots of neon and kiosks,
and a very strange-looking world.
In 1952, the New York Street
burned to the ground.
They took photos
and film of the burnt sets...
...and they used them for stock footage.
We had two Western towns, but, you know,
they just don't do Westerns anymore.
Those kind of fell by the wayside.
Blazing Saddles used one of them.
And shows like Bonanza,
Little House On The Prairie.
Then we also have a jungle set,
which is just a bunch...
...of various trees and bushes and things,
but it's a few acres.
This is the jungle
and the jungle lagoon.
This lagoon can be filled
for production.
It's filled right now, but we never leave it
filled for safety reasons...
...and for bugs and things like that.
There's a production about
to shoot in here, so they filled it up.
This entire area
was planted and designed...
...for the movie Santiago with Alan Ladd.
It's been a lot of things.
It was Central Park in The Omega Man...
...with Charlton Heston.
Pee-wee Herman swung across this
on his bicycle in Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
Probably the most famous thing
to shoot here was just a few years ago.
It was Ira's Roadside Diner
in Million Dollar Baby...
...Clint Eastwood's film.
And this was the diner
that they go to get the lemon pie.
Pretty pivotal scenes in there
with the lemon pie...
...was all about the ending of the movie.
But I won't tell you if you haven't seen it.
We are on probably one of the famous
streets at Warner Bros. studios.
This is Brownstone Street,
or was Brownstone Street.
It's been renamed Ashley Boulevard
for Ted Ashley.
It was one of the first streets
built here on the lot.
So it dates back to a time
before Warner Bros. even owned the lot.
It was First National Pictures back then.
This one right here,
the basement apartment...
...was actually Audrey Hepburn's
in the movie, Wait Until Dark.
A real scary, wonderful, popcorn movie.
Midwest Street has been around
since the early '30s...
...used in countless television shows
and movies.
The Music Man
with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones.
Brilliant film.
East of Eden, James Dean.
Big veteran's parade
that went around the town, that was in that.
Recently, we've had J. Edgar out there,
Clint Eastwood's film.
There was a shootout on, like,
the 4th of July, there.
The bunting was all over the building,
so that looked just amazing.
This spot is a very popular area on the lot.
It's called Hennesy Street.
It was named for the production designer,
Dale Hennesy...
...who remodeled this in the early 1980s...
...for the Columbia Pictures' Annie,
which shot here.
That right there,
where it says "Arts and Crafts"...
...that was Miss Hannigan's orphanage.
Most recent movie to shoot here
was J. Edgar.
Leonardo DiCaprio,
Clint Eastwood directing.
Here on the corner, that's a practical set.
Now, that one was used...
...in one of the funniest movies
from the '80s, Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
And that was the pet store where Pee-wee
saves all the animals from the fire...
...at the end of the movie.
This is the only studio that still has
pretty much the same backlot...
...as it had from the early days.
All the other studios have changed,
but we've pretty much stayed the same.
ROMANO:
In 1969...
...Steve Ross, Kinney National Service...
...acquired Warner-Seven Arts and changed
the name to Warner Communications.
And then in 1970,
they installed Ted Ashley, Frank Wells...
...and John Calley as the new management
of the company.
They decided to relocate the corporate
offices from New York to the studio.
Steve Ross was a unique person.
He was sort of the godfather
of the new Warner Bros.
He was a believer
of the entertainment business.
He was also a believer in people.
SEMEL:
I was working for Warner Bros.
I was their branch manager here
in Los Angeles, first in Cleveland.
I got a call. The new boss, Steve Ross...
...would like to have me come over
to the studio.
I came and as I entered...
...what ultimately turned out to be
Bob and myself, our offices...
...there were beads on all of the doors.
They weren't doors actually,
they were just beads.
And I could smell something like incense
or something in the room.
And as I came in, the key executives,
Steve Ross and Ted Ashley...
...they were all sitting on the floor
on pillows in the office.
And I thought, and I've told this
to Steve Ross in the past:
"It's time for me
to get out of this company.
There's something wrong
with these people from New York."
In fact, my job at that point
was to oversee a movie...
...and that was Woodstock.
These guys were, like, living Woodstock.
I thought,
"This could be a disaster for our company."
Needless to say, they were all brilliant.
They were very good executives
and very nice people.
But it was a hard entry for me to think:
"My God, will this be my new bosses?"
I remember that we used to have
three meetings a week in John's office.
These were three days where you took,
you know...
...two to three hours a day out of
your schedule to go to a staff meeting.
And no one ever missed that meeting...
...because they were the most compelling,
humorous, funny meetings.
And it was the way the company was run,
very collaboratively, everybody had a voice.
Even I, as a kind of a young, new business
affairs executive. It was really terrific.
I have the highest regard for those guys.
They were really, really pioneers...
...in the new iteration of Warner Bros.
from the '70s on forward.
They were unique in the way
they dealt with filmmakers.
And if you look at the history of the movies
they made, they were special movies.
Some of them weren't as commercial
as a Batman or a Lethal Weapon.
But they were really unique
and they were really quality movies.
They were a great management team.
These were all unique, very bright people
that Steve Ross picked.
I was a talent agent when I was a kid...
...for a very short time at MCA
with Lew Wasserman.
And then I left there
and I became a manager.
And a promoter. Music.
I became a film producer
in late '60s, early '70s.
I made a film here, I think about 37, 38
years ago, called Oh, God!...
...with George Burns and John Denver
and Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart.
It was a big hit.
And that's how I ended up at Warners.
I was all pinching myself
in those days, all the time...
...because the movie business
was fun in those days...
...and the guys that were running it
were Ted Ashley and Frank Wells.
Terry Semel was the head
of Distribution or Marketing.
I don't remember what.
And they were all friends of mine.
Guys I grew up with.
And it was--It was fun.
The Oceans were great fun to make...
...because the guys
are all close friends of mine.
They're like--All like my kids.
Not Pacino. He's like my father.
But the rest of them are like my kids,
and they're all great guys.
And I--I'm crazy about them.
I'm crazy about Al as well.
Soderbergh is a wonderful director
to work with.
And we had a terrific crew, great staff.
It was, you know,
it was the same crew that-- Throughout.
I worked with Frank, when the original
was made, in the music world.
And I always thought that the film could be
much better than the one that they made.
The were working at night
and filming during the day.
They weren't paying really
much attention to it. I got the rights.
When I came to Warners, it's the first thing
I plucked out of the library.
And I kept it all those years
and then I made it when the time was right.
I got a script and made it.
We had built a casino around the corner.
A whole casino. Looked just like Vegas.
We didn't--
We didn't leave anything out, actually.
We shot Ocean's Eleven in Vegas
and it was very, very hard.
And the guys became such big stars
after Ocean's Eleven...
...that it was impossible to shoot
all of those people in one place.
Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt...
...and George Clooney and Matt Damon
and Don Cheadle and so on.
Elliott Gould and Scotty Caan and so on.
It was impossible to shoot everybody
in a casino...
...because they couldn't have gambling
going on while we were there.
So we built our own.
Sinatra would have loved it.
He would have been in it.
Clooney never would have had a job.
Ha-ha-ha.
When I did The Exorcist here
between '72 and the end of '73...
...it was a trio of guys
who ran the studio.
Ted Ashley, Frank Wells
and John Calley.
Ted Ashley made all the decisions.
His word was final.
He decided to do The Exorcist.
He decided to hire me to do it.
And then Frank Wells
ran business affairs.
And John Calley,
who was a really great executive...
...was my main contact here.
And John Calley
would look at the dailies...
...and if the two executives above him
were getting nervous...
...he would say, "No, this stuff is great.
This is gonna work."
And he was extremely supportive of me.
And I must say that The Exorcist
was totally experimental.
None of this stuff had been done before.
We never previewed The Exorcist.
That was a choice made
by the management.
And I'm very glad they made it.
Because if we had previewed The Exorcist,
I would still be cutting it now.
I didn't do the film as a horror film.
I realize that today, it's considered
the number one horror film ever made...
...by most critics and most audiences.
The first choice by
the heads of this studio...
...Ashley, Calley and Wells,
was Audrey Hepburn.
And I thought that was a great idea.
I spoke to Audrey Hepburn,
who lived in Italy.
I spoke to her by phone.
And she was then married
to an Italian doctor...
...and living in Italy,
and she didn't wanna leave Italy.
She wanted us to go there.
I didn't wanna shoot the film in Italy.
The next choice was Anne Bancroft.
I thought that was a great idea too.
She read the script and said,
"Yes, I'd love to do this.
But I have to tell you,
I just found out I'm pregnant.
Now, if you guys are willing to wait
for a year, I'd love to do the film."
And, of course,
I remember saying to her:
"Anne, I think
when you have your child...
...you're not gonna wanna make a film
for a while...
...and certainly not The Exorcist."
The third choice was Jane Fonda...
...who read the script
and called John Calley and said:
"Why would you wanna make a piece
of capitalist rip-off bullshit like this?"
So she declined to make it.
Meanwhile,
Ellen Burstyn had been calling me.
She said, "I'm destined to play this part.
You believe in destiny, Mr. Friedkin?"
I said, "Yes, I do believe in destiny."
She had no leading roles
as far as I knew...
...but she had been a Catholic...
...she knew a lot about the Church
and its rituals.
I found her very bright and interesting.
And one day I went to Ted Ashley's office
and I said:
"Ted, I think Ellen Burstyn would be great
to play the lead in this film."
And Ted Ashley stood up behind his desk
and he said:
"Bill, I have total faith
that you'll do a great job on this movie.
But Ellen Burstyn will play this part
over my dead body."
He said, "Do you--?
Do you know what that means?"
And I said,
"Well, I have some idea. Yeah, Ted."
He said,
"Bill, let me show you something."
He lied down on the floor.
He said, "Come on over here
and walk over my body."
I said, "Oh, Ted, please."
He said, "No. Come on.
Walk over my body."
And so I stepped forward
and I tried to step over his body...
...and he grabbed my leg.
And I had to hold on to his desk
for support, and he said:
"That's what I will do if I'm dead
and you cast Ellen Burstyn in this part."
A number of years later...
...he was on the board
of the Metropolitan Museum of New York.
He had retired from Warner Bros.
And I met him at the opening of--
I think it was the Temple of Dendur
or some Egyptian room at the Met.
And I said, "Well, Ted, how do you feel
about Burstyn in that part now?"
And he said, "If we had had Jane Fonda,
we'd have done a billion dollars."
My name is Elaine Maser.
I'm the director of costumes
at WB SF Costume Department.
In the building,
we have different businesses.
We have the rental business.
We have a costume shop
where we manufacture...
...and also alterations.
And then we also have designer suites
and cages...
...for prep space for productions.
It's the largest of all the rental departments
in the city.
One of the reasons is
because of our relationships...
...with Warner Bros. Television
and Warner Bros. features...
...that we have an arrangement
with them...
...that we provide costumes
at a reasonable rate for them.
And then all the assets come back
to the studio at the end of wrap.
In the men's contemporary suits,
just contemporary suits...
...there's close to 6000 of them.
Shoes are too numerous to mention.
Ties, there's thousands
of contemporary ties.
I would say 4000 or more.
We have contemporary blouses,
we have skirts, we have jackets, we have....
Anything that we would ever wear
on a film or TV show, we have.
This dress is actually
from The Music Man.
And the way we know that...
...is that there are little tags
on the inside...
...that have the show numbers.
And we can look it up in our reference book
and it'll tell us what the show is.
And from that,
then we can go and get a DVD of it...
...and look and see who wore it.
What we do have upstairs in our shop
is we have the original sewing machines.
Some of them are very, very old and dated,
there's nothing better than them.
There's an old button hole machine they
used to use for heavy, heavy overcoats.
And it's a fabulous machine.
The old Singer sewing machines
are the best machines for chiffon.
And they have been in the shop
probably since the '40s.
The tables we have, we have photographs
from the '30s of the same tables.
We don't throw anything away.
If it's useful for stock, we hang on to it.
Otherwise, we find the right places
to send them.
What I've enjoyed the most is making films
of something that doesn't exist in the world.
You can't go to a department store
and purchase it.
And that's what the interesting thing is
to do.
And I've had the pleasure on working on
a few of those and for Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. always had
interesting people running it.
They never had assholes.
I mean, they always had guys
who understood moviemaking.
Bob Daly and Terry Semel...
...who ran Warner Bros.
for a hell of a long time...
...they worked together like clockwork.
The key is to have somebody...
...who really cares about movies
if you're running a movie studio.
Well, when I came here,
which was December 1st, 1980...
...Warner Bros. was a studio
that had two television shows...
...and was making four or five movies
a year.
We made up our minds
that we couldn't survive...
...with just having a few movies a year
and a few television series.
So we decided to really expand
our film production.
We actually then started to move
to go to 20, 25 pictures a year.
Each of the studios had announced
they're cutting back on production.
They're gonna make fewer films
in the next year or two ahead...
...and that was their mandate.
And we saw that as an opportunity
to really take off.
MEYER:
I had known Bob in his capacity at CBS.
And when Bob came to the company,
and with Terry here...
...they formed a different kind
of partnership.
And it really was also around the time...
...that our television activities
began taking off.
And they really brought the company
into this kind of newer, more modern age.
And especially in the television side
with Bob.
It was a marked difference
than it was before.
We built our television business
to a certain level...
...but we really didn't take it
to the next level...
...until we acquired Lorimar.
Because when we acquired Lorimar...
...we ended up getting not only
good assets, meaning shows.
We ended up getting unbelievable people
that worked at Lorimar.
That moved us to a different level
as an entertainment company.
We ended up broadening our base...
...so we weren't just sitting there,
praying that the next movie would work.
I know one time I called up--
Terry up and I had a sequel to a Dirty Harry.
And I had a project.
I wanted to give it to him.
And he said, "Well, yeah, just go ahead."
And I said,
"Well, don't you wanna read it?
Just in case, you know,
I've lost my mind here."
"Yeah, okay, but I've gotta go
to a basketball game that night."
So he went to the basketball game.
We didn't hurry into it.
He kind of green-lit it
before he really, really read it.
Which, it was flattering in a way
because it shows a great deal of trust.
Steve Ross said all the time:
"Our biggest assets go home
every night."
And basically what he said was,
it's the people.
And that something that stuck with us
and we believed in...
...and still believe in today, is the assets
are the people that work here.
They make up the company.
And in their own--
Everybody that works here is a part
of what makes this studio work.
And I believe in that.
AYKROYD: First time I came to the Warners
lot was shooting Spielberg's...
...magnificent comedy, 1941.
And I think it was my really--
My first exposure to a backlot.
I enjoyed this lot...
...because Clint Eastwood was here
and that was exciting.
I remember he had a parking space.
One afternoon, we were all brought out
to see the damage done...
...to the windshield of a car...
...belonging to a hapless driver
who had parked in his space.
Clint kept a little bat.
If you parked in the space,
everyone on the lot knew...
...you chanced getting a window
knocked out.
Now, whether it was by Clint
or someone else, I don't know...
...but we all came out to see the damage
to this car that this guy had parked there.
EASTWOOD:
When I first came over here...
...Frank Wells and John Calley
had just taken over the studio.
They talked me into doing Dirty Harry and
we had a good relationship on that film...
...and subsequent films of that nature.
I kept coming over here and doing films,
but I never really moved here till 1976.
Frank always lured me over, said:
"The office is always there for you
when you wanna come over."
And I finally--In 1976, I had this project,
The Outlaw Josey Wales, and I said:
"I've got this project. If you like it,
I'll come over and I'll move in."
MEYER:
Clint Eastwood started at Warner Bros...
...we often talk about this,
the same year I did.
In 1971, he came over to do a Dirty Harry,
and in 1971 I came over from ABC.
He's done 35 films in the interim.
I've had various executive jobs.
There's a difference.
I don't think there's any relationship
in Hollywood can compare...
...with Clint's relationship
to Warner Bros.
Its longevity, its steadiness, its comfort,
I think, is really unparalleled anywhere.
Clint Eastwood is an icon's icon.
In a world where there are movie stars
and celebrity directors...
...powerful directors, powerful producers,
I think he occupies unique space.
MEYER: He's a national treasure
and he is a Warner Bros. icon.
I just hope he keeps making films
for as long as he wants to.
As long as he wants to keep making films,
we'll keep helping him.
They have a certain amount of trust in me
managing their money on productions.
And picking projects
that have a chance to do something.
Some of them do, some don't, but you....
I had pretty good odds going along.
COX:
I've done about 30 films for Clint.
And I'm very fortunate
that I have the job I have.
I consider myself to be one
of the luckiest people in this town.
If you look at films we've done
in the last 10 years...
...there is a passion within him...
...for these special scripts
about special stories.
He does films about real people
and real circumstances.
And that's what I think what makes
his films so real to people...
...and the audience that sees it,
because they can feel the emotion...
...that those people have.
FREEMAN:
It was Mike Nichols who said:
"Once you've cast the movie,
the director's job is done."
Clint operates on that premise.
Once he's hired his cast...
...his job as director in that sense
is done.
After that, he's gonna be directing
the movie, not the actors.
I just love that about him.
COX: When you read a script
that Clint's gonna do...
...you see it one way.
You're not inside Clint's mind...
...because he has such a great passion
for doing films.
When he reads it, the reason
he does a script, he envisions that script...
...and those characters
doing certain things.
I remember Frank had only turned me down
once on a project that I brought to him.
And it was a project called
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.
He said he didn't wanna--
Didn't wanna make it.
So I made it over at United Artists
and the picture came out...
...and was received fairy well
and so he was annoyed at himself.
I said,
"You know, it's just all horse racing.
Not everybody's supposed to like
the same thing."
Clint Eastwood is the gold standard
for this business.
For how many films he's made,
how many genres...
...what a gigantic impact,
what a cultural impact.
And then what a great impact
as a director.
How many other guys or women are there
like him out there?
There aren't any really others like Clint.
There are some that come fairly close,
but there's only one Clint Eastwood.
SEMEL: This, of course,
is the Clint Eastwood Scoring Stage.
Well deserved because Clint became
our permanent user of this sound stage.
Many of his movies have been brought
into this facility, but the facility was old.
He would talk to us each time about...
...can we ever make it more modern
and better and bring it up to date?
And we all thought, "Why not?"
They were gonna to tear it down or,
actually, use the outside of the building...
...and build a bunch of dubbing stages
on there.
Every musician in town
was coming up to me and saying:
"Oh, you can't get rid of it. It's is one of
the only last great stages in the business."
And I always had the great memories of
that stage and we had good luck with it.
But they said it was gonna need
a big redo.
All the equipment was antiquated.
So I went to Bob Daley.
I said, "Well, gee, this is gonna be
the last stage of its kind."
And I gave him all the arguments.
And it was a year or two after that,
Bob Daley without--
I didn't even know they were doing it.
He gave the order to go ahead
and refurbish the stage.
One, he was surprised, which was great.
And he didn't know we were doing it.
And secondly,
when you talk about Hollywood...
...there is only one Clint Eastwood.
There is no other Clint Eastwood.
There's no other person like him.
There's no other person who has been
as loyal to one studio without a contract.
There's also no other person
who's been as productive as he is.
One day, they called me and said:
"We want you to come down
and see the new stage."
So I came down there,
it had my name on it.
It was great. I said, "Gee, I didn't realize
this delayed influence.
But it was--It's fine by me."
And I thought everybody'd be happy.
I told him if I'd have known that...
...I would have asked about other things
and had my name on the tower.
But it didn't quite work out that way.
DONNER: Goonies was the first film
we made on this lot.
Steven called me, Spielberg, and said:
"Hey, I'm developing a screenplay
and I really think you'd be perfect for it.
I'd love to see if you would do it."
I read this screenplay
and I just couldn't put it down.
I mean, I was jumping for joy.
It was funny, it was rich, it was warm.
It was very real. It was very Steven.
Steven has a phenomenal eye
for casting and ear.
And we had a great time casting.
Phenomenal. These kids were just great.
And they were real.
And they carried no burdens...
...except their own little personal ones
which had nothing to do with showbiz.
I took it on, and not realizing
what I was getting into.
It was insane.
I was in love with every one of the kids.
The way we're making movies today...
...if you have a pirate ship,
you'll do it in a tank with some water...
...and have a big blue screen
around it and--
Or green screen.
If you want the actors to be shocked...
...by the first appearance of a pirate ship,
they will--
You'll work on them and work on them
and work on them, and then they'll go:
"Oh."
And-- But they're looking at nothing.
Maybe a small pirate ship.
If you're smart, you'll hold it up.
That's what they're supposed
to be looking at.
Mike Riva, one of the brilliant,
brilliant production designers of all times...
...built our pirate ship.
And it stood down
at that end of the stage.
And it gradually started to open
and the walls around it were a great cave.
And it stood in 3 feet,
almost 4 feet of water.
Couldn't make it too deep
because the kids would have drowned.
And they knew something was on the stage
but I wouldn't let them see it.
And they were devious little buggers.
They tried everything.
They put on different costumes,
believe it or not, and wardrobe...
...to try and walk onto the stage
to see what was being built.
And all the security on the stage knew.
They all had pictures of the kids.
Watch this group, keep your eye on--
I'm serious. I'd get calls.
"We caught one of your kids.
We caught one of your kids."
So the day came.
And so we brought the kids in
with blindfolds.
We brought them in the water...
...and had them face away
from where the pirate ship was.
And I explained to them,
"You're gonna turn and see something...
...and it's up to you.
Whatever you react to, you react to."
We pulled their blindfolds off, pushed
them underwater, rolled the cameras.
They came up and stood for a minute,
looking where they had come down from.
They were good. They turned.
They turned into the camera.
Every one of those faces told a story.
"I'm seeing this pirate ship, One-Eyed
Willy, for the first time in my life...
...and it's the most awe-inspiring sight
I've ever had."
It was magic. It was beautiful.
Try and do it today.
Can't have it. It doesn't exist.
It was real, and much reality is gone now
with computers...
...and it's too bad.
But we had that great moment here
on Stage 16 at Warner Bros...
...that can never be repeated.
I feel an excitement
about being on a movie lot.
And this one I know more
than any other lot in Hollywood.
From walking it,
from traveling it on bike...
...from writing about it, and from, I hope,
immortalizing it in some way.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure was a different,
completely different film.
It wasn't about a bicycle, originally.
Phil Hartman, me,
and a gentleman named Mike Varhol...
...were writing a movie
that became Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
Every day we'd walk to the commissary,
walk back and forth on the lot.
We were doing a lot of research
because a big portion of Big Adventure...
...takes place on the Warner Bros. lot.
At one point, I said to two people...
...who were co-producing the movie
and were also my managers:
"How do you get a bike?
Everybody here has got a bike."
I mean, we were walking along
and everybody was riding on bicycles.
I started complaining every day.
I would be like, you know, "I asked
about a bike. How do you get a bike?"
And finally,
I came back from lunch one day...
...and there was a 1947 restored
Schwinn Racer...
...that they had bought for me,
chained up to a post...
...that had my picture right in front
of the bungalow that said:
"Parking for Pee-wee Herman only."
And I looked at it and went, "Oh, my God,
we're writing the wrong movie."
And we, literally,
we ran into the bungalow.
This is-- During this period,
we pulled the paper out of the typewriter...
...and started typing,
"His bike gets stolen."
I mean,
it was a completely different movie.
It was so much fun shooting on this lot.
We shot everywhere.
As you know, we shot all over this lot.
Places that don't exist anymore.
Places we created for the movie
that look like they had been here before.
And then we tried to utilize
as much as we could use...
...everywhere in this whole lot.
I was trying to go for this look of, like...
...what I used to, when I was a kid,
picture a Hollywood movie studio was like.
Where you walked onto the lot...
...and everywhere you looked
was a movie star.
People were wearing their costumes
everywhere.
And it was all--
You know, you'd see giant props.
We felt a great sense of pride
that we were going to...
...make our movie take place
on the Warner Bros. lot...
...and give new life to young people
to know the Warner Bros. lot.
I mean, it sounds corny,
but we took it very seriously...
...and we thought
we were doing something really cool.
And we had a lot of fun,
but we were very reverent about it.
GREENFIELD: We have just under
200,000 square feet in the facility.
And as far as items go,
we have just under 200,000 as well.
Almost everything comes exclusively from
our Warner Bros. shows and feature films...
...and all the past Warner Bros. shows
and feature films.
When the department first started out...
...there was a bit of a lack of antiques
in the Los Angeles area.
When doing a castle picture or period piece,
you'd have to go to Europe and travel.
And it's rumored that there were three
decorators on staff here at Warner Bros...
...and each would spend a particular...
...three-month time period in Europe,
buying antiques.
They'd rotate and bring those items
back into the house.
They'd be used on pictures.
And, slowly, the stock built up...
...and they've put that position to rest,
unfortunately.
Our chandelier and torch?re section.
You're looking at one of a pair
of Baccarat torch?res.
Probably the most valuable thing
in the prop house.
Two schools of thought here.
One, folks say they're from
Czar Nicholas of Russia.
The other is a casino built in '30s in Paris
and went defunct.
We're not sure how we got them.
Found in the basement a few years back.
They have been seen on-screen.
See them in Omega Man.
See them in My Fair Lady.
It takes two gentlemen a week
to take them apart and put together.
And that same time to get them back.
We do not rent them out.
They're worth about $2 million for the pair.
Maybe three, depending.
Everything here is samurai.
The samurais you see here
were from the front part of Inception.
The opening sequence.
You can see they're a little bit scorched.
When the dream collapses in Inception,
the place catches on fire.
These were crushed underneath debris.
We've kind of pieced them back together.
This collection is now available for rent.
We have been doing this for so long...
...we have one of the largest collections in
Hollywood and most of the United States.
We have a smattering
of just about anything you'd want.
From 1840s on up to current day.
Beetlejuice, I think one could...
...honestly say,
without any reservations...
...is original.
Might be my favorite thing
I've ever done.
It's a little art piece out of the creativity
and the mind of Tim Burton.
He has such a great sense of humor,
and he loves to laugh...
...and he just makes you feel good.
He's inspiring.
You know, right away,
you wanna do right for him.
I'd had met him three or four times
and I knew that I liked the guy.
I just couldn't understand
what the movie was.
And I think he may have started
showing me sketches.
That was really more than intriguing.
That was....
I felt, "Wow, this guy
has got a great imagination."
This is a true artist I'm dealing with.
I liked the guy, but I couldn't get from him,
really, very clearly, what exactly it was.
Finally, I remember us meeting one time
in a Mexican restaurant...
...on Lincoln Avenue in Venice.
It wasn't too far from my house,
and I said:
"Let's just go. You and I just go sit
and talk for a minute."
He said a couple of things
that gave me an idea.
He said a couple key things
that I took home and said:
"Okay, let me run with that."
And then I just started inventing
a walk and a voice and an attitude...
...and I had an idea about the teeth.
Well, I never rehearsed it.
I just showed up on the set, thinking:
"Boy, I hope this works
because there's no going back."
And the great thing about Tim
was when he saw it...
...his eyes just kind of lit up
and we just kind of ran a scene.
And everything from then on was,
"Yes, and...."
People forget
about how good that cast is.
You know, Catherine O'Hara
and Alec Baldwin...
...and Geena Davis
and, you know, Glenn and all those--
I mean, just really, really, really talented
group of folks and really well-cast.
And Bo, you know, his design
was really, really extraordinary.
My husband's a production designer
and he designed Beetlejuice.
What a great script
for a production designer...
...because it's really about the sets.
The main conflict is the dead people hate
how we redecorated their home.
That's--It's all about that.
And all the furniture....
What kind of character is this guy?
All the furniture could hurt you.
Our dining room chairs
were skinned rabbits pulled tightly.
Ha. The sculpture tried to kill me.
I wasn't necessarily sure that an audience
would show up, but it kind of didn't matter.
I knew I enjoyed it. I knew that there was
something that was really fun about it...
...that probably would translate
to somebody.
They sent a trailer.
And I thought it was one
of the greatest things I had ever seen.
I remember thinking, "Holy moly,
I'd go see that movie in a heartbeat."
GIBSON:
When you're working on a Donner film...
...he's got this sign above his door
when you go in there:
"Leave your ego at the door."
When you engage in any kind
of production where he was helming it...
...he left his stamp on it.
It was wide-open
and there was no baloney.
He has an intrinsic kindness...
...although he's got rough edges
and he plays some mean jokes.
He loves what he does
and he conveys that to the people...
...and everyone has a good time.
Casting Mel and Danny was Warner Bros.
There was on this lot...
...one of the great casting directors
of all time, lady named Marion Dougherty.
When I was doing Ladyhawke,
she helped me a lot with the casting.
When time came to do Lethal Weapon...
...Marion came to me in my office
and said:
"How about Mel Gibson?"
I said, "God, I tried to get him
for Ladyhawke.
Do you think we can get him?"
She says, "It's a telephone call."
We met in London.
It was a good meeting. I like him.
We had a good laugh.
I guess when he had the Lethal script,
he sort of remembered.
Sent the script,
spoke on the phone.
He said he really liked it
and we had some conversation.
As far as I was concerned, he was it.
"We got him, Marion."
I said, "What about Roger?"
She said, "Well, here's the whole list."
I said, "They're all great actors."
She said, "You know
who would be great for this role?"
I says, "No." She says, "Danny Glover."
But I said, "Marion, what a great idea."
GIBSON:
I'd met Danny at a Venice Film Festival...
...and we were on the way out.
Not like now, like, we're on the way out,
but we were on the way out of Venice.
We bumped into each other,
and I'd seen him in a few films...
...and I was a huge fan.
I thought he was scary in Witness.
I'd seen The Color Purple.
I was like, "I've got to work with you,
somehow, some way."
And he went, "Yeah." And he was like--
We were sort of like, I guess pissing
in each others pockets in the airport.
I remember when Donner
was talking about this.
He thought,
"That's a great idea. Let's go for it."
It's the big guy and a little guy
but the little guy's more crazy.
You know, it was funny.
A wonderful sense of humor.
These two were just instantly perfect,
and they continued that way.
Usually, these kinds of characters
had the two-dimensional aspect to them.
These guys did not.
So you apply that sort of action-film thing
to characters...
...who are a little more fleshed out.
We'd done the third Lethal Weapon...
...and we had reached $700 billion
or whatever it was it had--
It had made a fortune for the studio.
And Bob Daley called one day
and he said:
"I want you to come over for lunch
next week.
We're gonna have a little cake and celebrate
your $100 trillion...."
I said, "Okay, great."
So I started to think about it
and I said, "Jeez."
So I called Bob, and I said, "Bob, listen.
Rene Russo was really active in this thing...
...and I think we should have her
for lunch and it's important."
He said, "Okay."
I thought about it, said,
"What about Jeff Boehm?
The writer who was responsible
for this whole damn thing?"
Bob said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. All right, all right, all right."
I said, "Well, Pesci is in town. Shouldn't
we have Pesci? Make this real fun."
And by the time I was done,
I had six or seven people.
And Bob was very abrupt with me.
And we were having lunch,
that lunch was over...
...he said, "I wanna thank you all."
"In the days preceding you...
...when Calley and Ted
and everybody was here...
...they would have thrown a bunch of keys
on the table and go outside...
...and pick your new Ferrari
just to say thank you."
And Bob was bright red.
And he got up and he threw
a bunch of keys on the table.
And I looked and I said,
"Oh, my God. What have I done?"
He said, "Everybody, go out.
Pick a key and go outside."
And outside were eight
brand-new Range Rovers.
He thought he was getting away
with four Range Rovers.
Instead, he had to truck them
in from San Francisco.
It probably wouldn't be right
to say that Morgan Freeman...
...is the best actor in the world.
And there are 7 billion people now
in the world.
But he stands among those
who would qualify for such a status.
He is an extraordinary actor...
...and he's as good a guy
as he is an actor.
He's really a wonderful man.
At the time,
based on the Stephen King novella...
...Rita Hayworth and the
Shawshank Redemption...
...from which we developed Shawshank...
...there was no thought
that the character Red...
...as he was named in the book,
would be an African-American.
I saw this film Morgan had done
called Street Smart, an early film...
...where this guy who could be
so emotionally powerful and compelling...
...also could be extremely tough.
FREEMAN:
When I got the part, I got the book.
And I read the first paragraph
and I put it down...
...because I wasn't gonna be able
to play the book.
You know, Red was an Irish guy.
You know, it was too far away.
HORN: The fact that he did Shawshank,
which has now become....
...I mean, it's on everybody's
top 10 or 20 or 25 list.
We're very, very proud of this movie.
Now, over the years, the relationship
with Morgan just deepened...
...and I just found myself really liking him,
becoming friends with him.
And he brought a special thing
to the films he did.
FREEMAN:
I started working my voice...
...when I was doing
The Electric Company.
But it never occurred to me...
...that there was anything special about it
from the outside.
Straight from the inside,
I'm just gonna listen to myself.
But this all started
with Shawshank Redemption.
Narrating that story.
HORN: We had bought the rights
to March of the Penguins...
...through Warner Independent,
and it was in French.
We thought, what we need to do
is to convert this to English...
...and we need to have a voice-over done
by somebody.
And when anyone thinks of a voice-over
for anything...
...they think of Morgan Freeman.
He was asked to do it and he said no.
And I called him and I said,
"I need a favor."
And he just said, "You got it."
Alan called me and said:
"This is a great little documentary.
I'm gonna send it to you."
It was the most fascinating thing
I'd ever seen.
HORN:
He came in and he did it.
One-take Morgan, you know.
Two hours later, he was done with it.
And yet that resonant voice.
I told him, "When I can't sleep at night,
if I have problems, you know...
...I just turn on one of the Morgan movies
and I'm just fine. I'm just comfortable."
Because there's something soothing,
comfortable about his voice...
...that I think everyone feels,
which is why he's so popular.
My success with voice-overs,
biggest surprise of my life.
[FREEMAN LAUGHS]
ROMANO: Television now is a huge piece
of the Warner Bros. business.
We have a thriving,
very strong television business.
When I came out here in 1970,
we really had only one series, FBI.
And Warner Bros. Television,
even as it grew...
...never really had
that big a television presence.
We had Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,
a couple of TV series.
Warner Bros. actually became quite
successful in the movie-of-the-week genre.
David Wolper came aboard
Warner Bros. Television...
...and was one of the inventors...
...and if not,
an expert in creating the miniseries...
...which also was a lot of television
programming in that period of time.
The television business changed
for Warner Bros...
...when we acquired Lorimar
and brought in their television executives...
...their head of production,
their syndication people.
The Warner Bros. Television operation
really started to grow.
ROSENBLUM:
We're still the leading supplier...
...of television programming
across the television industry.
We produce for all the broadcast networks
and most of the basic cable networks.
We have on the television side some
of the best creative talent in the business...
...and they've been with us for years.
John Wells, for example,
predates me here at Warner Bros.
Jerry Bruckheimer has been here
10-plus years.
J.J. Abrams is here now. Chuck Lorre
has been here for a very long time.
The talent that comes here and works
with our executives and this beautiful lot...
...and works with all of our executives
around the world...
...knows that the culture at Warner Bros.
is one that nurtures creativity...
...it supports creativity,
and it certainly rewards creativity...
...when the creativity is successful
in our business, in the television business.
We have the best facilities.
We have the largest and most beautiful lot.
Our stages are storied in their history.
To go to Stage 24
and to realize you're on the stage...
...in which Friends
changed the course of history.
It's an extraordinary experience
and feeling.
And that's kept alive by the people
who are part of Warner Bros.
After ER finished its run here
at Warner Bros...
...we converted those stages
to live tape stages.
And Ellen has three of those stages now.
And it's a world-class
production facility...
...for a Monday-through-Friday
daytime talk show.
On the backlot,
we also now have Conan O'Brien's show.
So the lot has evolved
with the expansion of our business.
The lot's not just being used anymore...
...for prime-time shows
and for theatrical product.
We have first-run syndicated shows.
We have basic cable shows.
And as our business expands,
our use of the lot expands as well.
Probably one of the most successful series
that we produced here in Warner Bros...
...in the last 13 years,
and that's The West Wing.
That began when Aaron Sorkin...
...who had written a feature film called
An American President...
...he wanted to tell more stories
about the inner workings...
...of how the White House and the staff
that serviced the president would work.
So he created this show.
He dared to be different.
He dared to be alternative.
He dared to try something that had never
worked in the history of television.
And the result was, not only one
of the most successful series in history...
...but the most awarded series
in television.
I kind of backed into The West Wing
because I had done...
...The American President
with Aaron Sorkin.
We became friends
and I became a fan of his as well.
Then a few years later, I got a call
asking if I would be interested...
...in playing a part called The West Wing,
and that I would play a president...
...but there was only a few scenes
in the pilot...
...and that I would not be asked
to do more...
...than maybe three or four episodes
in the season.
I said, "Oh, that's grand."
The only requirement was that I couldn't
play another president anywhere else...
...as long as that series was on the air.
I said, "What are the chances?"
And so I signed on
and I was happy as Larry.
And then just a few months after the pilot,
or even less, it seemed...
...I got a call asking if I would be interested
in being kind of more of a regular.
I never thought I'd be on television.
People telling me this is political.
It's not gonna go,
you'll probably do the pilot.
I wasn't very savvy about television shows.
I still don't think I am.
I don't know how anybody figures
what's gonna work.
The fact that it did, it kept surprising me.
I wasn't one--And I never read the trades
and read the ratings.
I didn't care any of that stuff.
Somebody will tell me...
...when I have to stop showing up.
I'm not gonna worry.
I'm just gonna show up, learn my lines.
But I secretly was crossing my fingers
and hoping I wouldn't get that phone call.
I like working. I really like being part
of a group of people...
...working on something
as good as West Wing.
I was so proud. I never had an experience
where I've worked that I wasn't proud of.
I imagine that would be hell.
I would just have so many moments.
I just think how lucky I was. I'd smile.
I'd feel happy that I was doing what I loved.
SHEEN:
I had a ball here.
Seven of the best years of my life,
working with some of the best people.
Not only that I had ever worked with,
but that I had ever met.
When we started,
President Clinton was in the White House.
And he was a great supporter.
He loved the show.
He was aware of our progress
and our administration.
But then he left office,
and it got a little dicey...
...with the, ahem, next administration.
He was not such a big fan of the show,
or me in it.
We were free, of course, to do things
with a fictional White House...
...that the president could not do.
So we had the advantage of writers,
and he had the disadvantage of history.
[LAUGHS]
I remember the casting process of Friends,
for sure.
I remember coming here...
...and they were casting Friends and ER
at the same time.
So I remember--
You know, you try to see
who's reading for your part.
You just try to gauge.
And it was impossible because there were
all these people for that hospital show.
I remember thinking,
"Another medical show? Really?
All right. Well, good luck."
Um-- Ha, ha.
When I did the pilot for Friends,
I had no clue...
...that it was gonna be a hit,
get picked up. Nothing.
I met the other cast members
at the table read.
When I got the part of Phoebe, I didn't--
No one was cast except David Schwimmer.
I think I was the second person cast.
I read the role of Chandler.
I pictured a snarky, gay guy.
And I didn't know
how it could be anything other than that.
And then Matthew Perry, I meet him,
and I thought, "Okay, well, he's not gay.
I wonder how this will...?
Anyway, let's see."
And then he reads, and his sense of humor,
his timing, his rhythm is so unique...
...and I was blown away.
That first season,
the show hadn't aired yet...
...and Jimmy Burrows,
he'd directed the first 12 episodes...
...and he decided that the six of us
should go on a trip to Las Vegas together.
He got Warner Bros. to give us
the Warner Bros. jet to use.
And he showed us the first episode
after the pilot on the plane ride.
It was so thrilling.
It was such a great idea.
And then he took us to dinner
and he said:
"Pay attention right now,
because this is the last time...
...that the six of you will be out in public
and you won't be mobbed."
And everyone went, "Aah. Ah."
Chris Nolan is a unique individual,
as well as an incredibly unique filmmaker.
He has such a singular vision...
...and such a notion
of what the movie is...
...that we green-lit Batman Begins
off of his pitch.
It had that clarity of vision.
It had that sort of--
His ability to convey ultimately
what the movie would be...
...without even having read a script.
To do that, you really have to have
just an incredible sense of the material...
...and an incredible ability
to communicate it.
I had never pitched projects, really,
until Batman Begins.
The thing with Batman Begins
is we had a strong concept...
...we had this little gap in movie history.
Batman had been addressed very, very
successfully as a movie character...
...by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher
and so forth.
But there was this funny little gap
that no one had ever made the origin story.
No one has ever made
the version of Batman...
...that equated with the version of Superman
Dick Donner had made in the late '70s.
And so it was an easy pitch in a sense.
It was, let's put an extraordinary character
in an ordinary world.
Not the stylized world that Tim Burton
had so brilliantly put across...
...and a character who fit in that world.
More the Superman treatment
Dick Donner had done. This sort of epic...
...populated with incredible actors
doing supporting roles and so forth...
...and creating a sense of reality.
Shooting on real locations,
that kind of thing...
...where Batman would become this
extraordinary figure, walking on the street...
...and as surprising to the characters
in the film as he should be to the audience.
Each film he makes is a step forward
in terms of filmmaking for him.
They're bigger films,
more challenging films...
...they're more complicated movies.
And he just keeps raising the bar
for himself.
And for someone in my job, it's a real
privilege to be around a guy like Chris...
...because everything he does
is so spectacular.
And it's exciting to watch,
it's exciting to be a part of.
It also challenges you to sort of
raise your game and raise your bar...
...and try and step up to his level,
which is really hard to do.
NOLAN: I first pitched the idea of Inception
to the guys at Warners...
...right after I finished Insomnia.
But I felt...
...despite their enthusiasm
for the broad concepts I pitched them...
...I said I wanted a film
about dreams and architecture...
...most of it's set
in the first-class cabin of a 747.
I think that was the comprehensible part
of the pitch.
They said, "Whatever you wanna do.
We'll take a look at it."
I decided I wasn't really ready to write the
script or I wasn't really ready to finish it.
And it took me really about 10 years
to finish the thing.
And then we brought it
to the guys at Warner Bros.
And we had them read it together
very quickly...
...because we wanted to keep it secret and
we were in a rush to get the film going...
...because I knew that I wanted to come
back and do the sequel to The Dark Knight.
There's a handful of people like Chris.
He's just turned 40,
and if you look at his body of work...
...I think for his age and his time,
he's the guy, you know.
He is sort of the preeminent filmmaker,
I think, of his generation.
You finish a film, then you sit and watch it
with the audience...
...and then you start to know
what it is you've done...
...where you're taking things and
what questions you have left to answer.
And I always like to try and carry over...
...a set of questions from one film
into the next.
It's a great feeling of pride
when you pull in Gate 4 each day...
...and see behind you
and to the right of you...
...and to the left of you
postproduction facilities...
...supporting all different disciplines
of sound.
We have 12 buildings on the lot
dedicated to sound.
And also in the support of picture editorial
and projection services.
We have 16 stages for mixing sound.
We call them rerecording stages.
We have five stages called ADR stages.
And it's automated dialogue replacement.
We have two Foley stages.
We have eight screening rooms
for projecting film.
We have 125 sound editorial
and design rooms...
...and another 120-odd
picture editing rooms.
So that starts to give you a picture
on the scope of the operation.
We're in Building 4,
which is the headquarters...
...for Warner Bros.
Post Production Services.
It's a large building, approximately
120,000 square feet...
...of sound-and picture-editing space.
So today, we're gonna give you a little look
at the diversification...
...that our department's have been through,
taking you into the audio underground.
This is one of our new dynamic
audio underground mixing environments.
Come on in.
This is Brad. Brad's been mixing
at the studio for many years.
He's working
with Pro Tools based technology...
...where all the files are kept virtual.
Gives him a huge amount of flexibility
when he's mixing.
I'm now gonna take you
onto rerecording Stage 5.
This is one of our large theatrical stages.
It was built about 25 years ago
and has been recently updated.
I'm just gonna give you a little look
behind the scenes as we mix feature films.
At the console today
is none other than Steve Maslow...
- Hello.
- ...himself. Ha-ha-ha.
MASLOW:
Just trying to get this right.
Practice makes perfect here.
I very much enjoy doing postproduction
at Warner Bros...
...because they have fantastic
sound facilities...
...and these great dubbing stages
with tremendous height.
So you could really move the air around
the way you do in a very big cinema.
I get a tremendous charge, really,
out of coming to work...
...to work on postproduction of the film
at such a historic studio.
Just the sense of the place...
...and the great filmmakers who have
preceded you here and everything.
It's very inspiring, really.
And so it's something I've--
I've really enjoyed doing over the years.
MEYER: Harry Potter was one of the most
brilliant literary properties to come along.
I mean, the most credit for Harry Potter
has to go to Jo Rowling.
HORN:
Jo Rowling is an extraordinary individual.
I mean, I think the world knows that
by now.
She is extremely bright.
She has a wicked sense of humor.
She's very nice, she's very personable.
I think she knew that when we came
to the subject of making Harry Potter...
...I think she looked at us very closely
to see how faithful we would be...
...to the literary works
which she created.
And what we said to her,
"Our job was to translate Harry Potter...
...these instant classics, if you will,
that she had created so beautifully...
...and translate them to film."
She had questions.
I mean, she said, for example:
"Look, after you guys come out with
this movie, the first Harry Potter movie...
...the world will know
what Harry Potter looks like exactly.
Whereas with my books...
...each person can interpret
for himself or herself...
...exactly what Harry Potter
really looks like.
How tall is he, how curly is his hair...
...his eyes were supposed to be green
and all that.
But now Harry Potter
looks like Daniel Radcliffe."
And we consulted with her
very, very frequently.
She was well aware
of our commitment to her...
...and how thoroughly
we had read her books.
Chris Columbus, when he first came on
and directed the first two films...
...you have to give him a lot of credit
for having cast the kids...
...that ultimately were the three main actors
for all eight movies.
From there, each successive director,
Alfonso Cuar?n and Mike Newell...
...and ultimately David Yates,
who directed the last four films...
...really delivered
on what the key material was in the book.
Diane Nelson deserves a special place
in this history of Harry Potter...
...because more than anyone
at Warner Bros...
...she developed a personal relationship
with Jo...
...that led directly to trust.
And trust was very important for Jo
as we took these books...
...not just one book,
but really all seven of them...
...and translated them to film.
Barry and Alan recognized
that this was different...
...in that Jo Rowling was in the midst
of creating something...
...that was so unprecedented.
We had never seen anything like it.
So her involvement
and our value of her instincts...
...about what the fans are gonna care about
has proven to be really important.
Sequels have a way of often declining
as you go down the road.
This is a franchise...
...where the sequels and the movies
kept getting better and better and better.
I give a lot of that credit to my partner
Alan Horn who had a lot to do with that...
...and was committed and focused
to Harry Potter every step of the way.
And there's something in Harry Potter
that resonated with people...
...regardless of the culture...
...or the geography of where they live,
regardless of age.
It is the best example of storytelling,
certainly our generation, has ever--
My generation has ever seen.
There's something really special there.
It's hard to put your finger on it.
The first time I came onto this lot
was probably 1991 or so.
I came out to L.A.,
I wanted to be an actor.
My agent finally set me up
with the head of casting at Warner Bros.
My head spun with the possibilities...
...and the thrill of the prospect
of doing a movie with Warner Bros.
I would not ever do a movie
with Warner Bros...
...until 2009.
I was looking to do a movie
after The Town...
...and Jeff Robinov sent me the script.
The script was incredible.
They don't make movies like this anymore.
It had no business being as easy as it was
to get ahold of and green-light...
...as a great piece of material as Argo was.
Very hard to do a period film
in the sense that...
...it hampers you from just picking up
the camera and shooting.
It surprised me
how sort of confounding it would be.
You can't see this, can't see that. If you can,
change sign, what's the sign gonna say.
How did it look and--
Just everything is done, like--
It's cars driving down the street, you know,
that you sort of take for granted.
We shot a bunch of Argo on the lot.
Some on stages, the old-fashioned way,
where you build the sound stage inside.
And the rest of it, we shot-- Because it was
supposed to be on this lot in 1980...
...we shot over on one of those
little New York Street areas.
We shot on....
Coming into the kind of
executive parking lot...
...with these gates that open, and we tilted
off to a water tower down to the car.
We shot a big helicopter shot
of the whole studio.
Argo is basically a tour of Warner Bros.
I made sure to use every inch of this place
as I could because it was so magical.
We're at the exterior of Building 38,
which contains--
Houses the film archives
for Warner Bros.
Film over the years deteriorates and needs
to be stored under special conditions...
...as advised by the manufacturers
of the film, Kodak and Fuji and others.
It needs to be stored
in very chilled conditions...
...almost near freezing, and dehumidified.
It preserves the film
and keeps it from turning yellow.
This is it.
Everything that's done out there
results in this.
We're in the manufacturing business
and what we produce is this.
This is what we make.
This is Warner Bros.
This is-- This is the gold.
TSUJIHARA: The core business
of creating great content...
...has remained constant
from 1928 to today.
What's changed
is the way we distribute it.
Whether it's television content
or theatrical film content or video games.
The notion of trying to create
incredibly compelling great content...
...has remained constant throughout.
What has changed
probably in the last 10 or 15 years...
...has been the way that we get it
to the consumer and get it to their home...
...or the way they experience it
at the movie theater...
...has changed dramatically.
The theatergoing experience
has changed.
Years ago,
they were the big barns downtown...
...1000-seat theaters,
some were air conditioned, some were not.
The amenities certainly were a minimum.
Today, they're destination centers.
You have multiplexes of 16 to 25 theaters
with IMAX screens.
You have game rooms,
you have reserve seating...
...you have valet parking,
you have bars in some locations.
You have food service at your seat.
The moviegoing experience
is definitely different than it was years ago.
In North America,
there are about 43,000 screens.
They're about 13,000 of them that have
capability now of playing 3D movies.
The marketing process has changed a bit
over the years.
Now, there are certain things
that stay the same.
Like television, for example.
It's still one of the number one place
that people get their information...
...and are motivated to go see a film
and trailers.
But what's changed is, all the different
platforms that are out there...
...that don't necessarily supplant
old marketing, but supplement it.
So you have to be everywhere now,
and you have to be doing everything.
If you think about how the consumer
accessed our movies 90 years ago...
...the only way they can enjoy our movies
was from watching it at a movie theater.
Fast forward 90 years...
...you now have DVD players,
you have Blu-ray players...
...you have over-the-top streaming services
like Netflix.
You have basic cable channels,
you have network channels.
You have all kinds of different ways
for the consumer to access our movies.
So while the job
of making compelling content...
...and incredibly incredible content
hasn't changed...
...what's changed
is the way we distribute it.
KROLL: In Korea, we were launching
trailers on mobile phones.
And even though we were doing it,
I remember thinking the time:
"Wow, crazy that we're spending
all this time...
...mixing a trailer, making it beautiful.
Somebody's gonna watch it
on a mobile phone, you know.
What a shame."
And now, of course, it's a primary way
we distribute our materials.
Mobile, online.
All these devices,
which, thank God, look beautiful.
But I think about that,
that wasn't that long ago.
There's never been a better time
to be in the production business...
...primarily as a result of these
distribution platforms that are emerging.
When you look at Netflix,
you look at Hulu, at Amazon, at Google...
...they are all buyers, both here domestically
and around the world, for content.
When you have a business
on the scale of our business...
...all of those new distribution platforms
allow us to increase the value of that library.
So as we look out
over the next five, 10, 15, 20 years...
...the production business
is a great to be in...
...because of the expansion of these
distribution opportunities for product.
You were locked down
to either a movie theater or your home.
Now it's-- You can watch our movies
anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
And I think that's the magic of it.
HORN: There's something very magical
about this place.
There's a politeness, there's a courtesy,
there's a friendliness...
...there's a family feeling that one feels...
...at the very first moment
driving on the lot. It's really special.
Warner Bros. is different.
I think that we have a unique culture
and a unique feeling.
If you ask anybody in the industry,
they will they you.
The family that we have here is unique.
I've been on this lot for a very, very long
time. I shot a lot of things on this lot.
When the guard at the gate sends you
through without a ticket on your car...
...that's a good sign, you know.
Warner Bros. Studio is heaven
for a producer and a director.
Everything is here.
You don't have to go anywhere
to get anything...
...to make a picture at Warner Bros.
JANNEY: Coming to Warner Bros.
every day, I knew how lucky I was.
And as time goes on, as more time goes
since I've finished West Wing...
...I realize how lucky
and extraordinary it was...
...that I got to have this experience here.
If Jack Warner were to be able to see
this lot now, he'd be very impressed.
DALY:
I root for Warner Bros. every day. I do.
- It's sort of in my blood.
- Me too.
Wow, how fortunate all of us have been
at Warner Bros...
...being able to be
on this beautiful campus...
...with great facilities,
with very smart people...
...and just a lovely place to work.
Working for Warner Bros. all this time,
I don't know how you put that in words.
You could say it's an honor.
It was a great opportunity.
But working for Warner Bros.
is just a lifetime dream.
The one thing that distinguishes
one company from another company...
...whether it's in the physical facility
or in the executive offices...
...are the people you're dealing with.
One of the things
that distinguishes Warner Bros...
...is that everybody knows
when they come here...
...they're dealing with people
who enjoy their work...
...respect the work of the people
they're dealing with...
...who have been here for a long time
and understand well what they're doing.
That is the one distinguishing feature.
I think Warner Bros. has done such
a phenomenal job...
...in entertaining people over the years...
...that not only do they deserve
a documentary...
...they deserve two documentaries.
So I think you should follow up this one
with a second one.
Ninety-one years.
I definitely get a strong sense
of that amazing Warner Bros. history...
...which is why I like to make extra cash
by giving tours after hours.
People are astounded
by what's happened here.
By the way, I found a wig backstage.
I think it's Judy's wig from A Star is Born
or a dust bunny.
Either way, it's old,
and I am gonna get a bundle for it on eBay.
I have a few times had a problem getting
on the lot because I forgot my ID at home.
But I just tell them
I'm Jane Lynch or David Spade...
...and then they let me right in.
I'm really proud of the fact
that I have a talk show here...
...on the Warner Bros. lot.
Very, very proud.
And even more proud of the fact
that I have a fantastic parking space.
And not only am I proud
that I have a talk show here...
...I'm especially proud
to be the first person to do it.
I feel like a pioneer.
Like the first person
who walked on the moon...
...like Neil Diamond or Louis Armstrong.
I don't know his name.
I didn't go to college.
You can do anything you set your mind to
and you don't have to go to school.
You don't. Remember that, kids.
Happy anniversary.
[English - US -SDH]
I walked out of my trailer one time, ha...
...and I saw four guys
walk out of a sound stage...
...and they were clearly Martians.
And they had white BVD T-shirts on...
...but from the waist down,
they had green scales and sort of fish feet.
And so they flopped over to a rail...
...and they had scales on their head
and sort of these weird noses.
And they all put a cigarette in their mouths,
carefully...
...and sat there smoking,
talking about their agents...
...in these fish feet
with white BVD T-shirts.
And I thought, "I love this business."
Only at Warner Bros.
are you gonna see that.
FREEMAN:
It's a great studio.
If you just go back
over the history of the films...
...that this studio has championed,
has made...
...many of them are classics.
First time I came on the Warner Bros. lot
was as a script reader.
I would come down, pick up my scripts
or my novel to read over the weekend.
They'd give you a pass
for a couple of hours.
I would walk around the backlot
and check out some of the famous sets...
...and just absorb
some of the great history...
...and dream about, you know, coming here
one day to actually make my own films.
There is a respect that you have,
that I have...
...when you walk into a place like this.
Like, how can you take it for granted?
All the people who would love to be in
your shoes, who'd love to be sitting here...
...or literally sitting here
talking about this studio.
Being on this lot and looking around
these streets and thinking:
"Wow, this is where they made those
movies that I was in love with as a kid."
I came over here in the '50s.
I was very impressed with the lot.
Its beautiful stages
all had a lot of ivy growing on them.
And there was kind of a certain character
to them that they didn't have across town.
When you come to the gate
at Warner Bros., you feel like--
Now you're really where they make movies,
real movies.
GILBERT: This is one of the biggest lots
in Hollywood.
We have 110 acres on our main lot.
We have a ranch facility
located five minutes from here...
...that's another 35 acres.
But the lot is rather densely packed.
We have 35 sound stages, total...
...which is the most in any studio
in Hollywood.
Thirty here on the main lot
and five at the ranch.
About 35 acres of backlot,
lots of office buildings.
It's a very densely packed 110 acres.
KAHN: Warner Bros. Studios is a studio
that has a great story.
And the story does start
with the four Warner brothers.
And a lot of people don't know
that there were four Warner brothers...
...four actual brothers,
that started this studio.
The brothers were Polish immigrants...
...that moved to the States in hopes
of new opportunities and education.
The first thing they did when they got here
was started getting into business.
The most inventive brother of them all
was Sam Warner.
Sam had traveled by train
to do other jobs...
...and in one of the jobs...
...he saw a movie being projected
on the outside of a building.
And he thought, "What is that?"
And then when he talked to the guy
who owned the projector...
...and found out what movies were,
he thought:
"Maybe this is the business
we should get into."
KAHN:
The films that people were watching...
...were really more or less
reality programming, I guess, if you will.
You know, there wasn't a plot, you know.
We would see people dancing on camera...
...or maybe gathering
by the train station.
These clips that would show people
in everyday life.
But the American populace
was just taken by this.
And the brothers saw this.
The family scrabbled together
enough money to buy everything...
...including selling the family horse,
and they bought this projector...
...and they traveled around
from town to town.
When they ran out of films,
they moved to the next town.
At that point in time, they also found
other people who were showing films.
And they would buy those films.
And then they thought,
"Maybe we should make films as well."
They did what a lot of other
moviemakers did in the early days.
They moved west.
Harry was the one who kept reinvesting
the money, kept making the money.
But is was Sam who really got the brothers
to the next level at every point...
...I mean, until he passed away.
Meaning, he's the one who got
the brothers into movies to begin with.
And he also is the one who convinced them
that they should do sound films.
Going back to the best of my memory,
it was 1925...
...when Western Electric
and Vitaphone...
...had the technology that they were trying
to convince studios to use.
Vitaphone was really,
for all intents and purposes...
...a disk with a needle
that was synchronized...
...to the belt drive of conventional
soundless projectors in that era.
So they would put the needle
on the start point on the album...
...they would put the film
on the start point...
...and lock the two together,
and off you go.
At the time, Sam Warner
was very interested in this technology.
And worked off with his brother Harry...
...to convince him to use it
on upcoming productions.
And ultimately,
Harry was swayed to go along with it.
They went to production
and they used it for musical pieces...
...on Don Juan, and then in 1927,
The Jazz Singer...
...where a little bit of Al Jolson's voice
was the spoken word.
[CHEERING]
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
You ain't heard nothing yet.
Sam never lived to see his film sound
come to life or fruition, really.
And Jack was the one
that really pioneered it from there on.
As they started to procure theaters
throughout the country...
...they were all equipped
with this technology.
So it was driven by Jack at that point.
Jazz Singer was a huge hit...
...changed the movie industry forever,
changed the Warner brothers forever.
With the money that they were making,
they were able to buy theater chains.
They were able to buy
First National Pictures...
...which was the premier
silent movie company at that time.
And with First National,
they acquired this lot.
I had an insight into Jack that most actors
didn't have because I was a tennis player.
And every weekend,
we had tennis at Jack's house.
And I came to know him,
to feel what he was like underneath...
...and to be very sympathetic with him
because of that...
...because of knowing him that well.
And I liked him very, very much.
I mean, he was very good to me
while I was here.
I won't deny that he was ridiculous...
...and he thought he was Jack Benny
and all of that.
That was not the real man.
He also had an ostensible contempt
for actors.
I mean, he called the biggest stars,
"Oh, that stupid son of a bitch."
You know, this, that.
Like, I mean, he just disrespect.
But I understood that too
because he was awed by them.
From where he came,
and to be their boss...
...and to be telling them what to do
and everything like that...
...was not familiar ground for him.
Many years after I was here,
they previewed a picture of Warren Beatty.
It took over Stage 1.
And there was a huge luncheon.
They invited all the old Warner stars
from before that era.
Pat O'Brien and Robinson
and those people.
And, of course, they all got up to speak
and they all made hay out of Jack Warner.
They all, you know, told Warner jokes
and made fun of him.
And he let himself in for that.
I mean, he was wide-open.
But there wasn't a nice thing said
about him.
Well, I had never met Bette Davis
at that point...
...and I happened to be sitting at the table
with her at this occasion.
And I liked her so much.
I mean, I--She was--
Well, who needs to say anything
about Bette Davis?
Anyway, she got up and she said,
"Papa--"
She called him Papa.
After all of these slams
and everything else, said, "Papa...
...you gave me my first chance
in this business...
...and I've always loved you
and I always will.
Thank you. God bless you."
And that was so stunning, you know,
after the usual reception of Jack Warner.
But it was--I've never gotten over it.
This was the rear entrance
to the main administration building.
Barry Meyer's office.
Jack Warner's old office is right upstairs.
It's where the senior management
of the studio resides.
Headquarters of Warner Bros.
right here.
This is called the Rose Garden.
It's quite a beautiful setting.
It's very serene.
Roses in bloom,
trees that are 90 years old.
It's quite a pretty setting.
Far into the lot, the arches are where
the Wardrobe Department was.
Both floors were wardrobe storage.
The downstairs under the arch
was a pass-through window...
...where they would have the sign,
name of the movie...
...and actors would go up
and have their wardrobe issued to them.
As far as the look,
we have tried to preserve it.
The entry has been moderned up...
...but we tried to make it as consistent
to the architecture of the time as possible...
...using metal doors and moldings
to match the old ones.
We have some great artists here
and great craftspeople.
You can't find these windows but our metal
shop could certainly recreate them for us.
McGRORY:
This is the Mill at Warner Bros. Studios.
The Mill was built around 1937.
It's about 120,000 square feet.
It's a fully self-contained construction
environment where we build all the sets.
Design them, construct them,
and then install them on the stages.
In the Mill we have--We have paint...
...staff, metal, scenic arts,
large-format printing...
...large sign tech, the Sign Department.
We also do electrical, plumbing, AC.
It's all here in the Mill.
PIKE: This is the scenic art loft.
It's the Scenic Art Department.
This has been here since 1937
when they built the Mill.
I've been here for 22 years and it hasn't
changed in the time that I've been here.
And I've seen pictures of the room
and it looks exactly the same.
Other than the guys
wearing suits and ties painting, which is--
I can't even imagine doing.
We are the last
and one of the biggest departments.
We have the most frame space
and we're it.
We used to hand-paint
all the billboards in front.
And it was done in oil paint,
off a scaffolding.
It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of work.
It was actually a very physical job.
You know, oil paint is thick.
It doesn't spread easily.
You literally, if you have, like, a sky blend
and you have three color blues...
...you have to work that paint
back and forth until it's smooth.
But I really enjoyed it.
And I did that, for, like, my first
10 or 12 years here, almost exclusively.
And then the digital age came
and now we're printing them.
McGRORY:
This is the VUTEK printer...
...one of the larger printers
in the industry right now.
It's a 5-meter printer.
And we do all of our large-format printing
on here.
We do billboards, backdrops,
other scenic elements.
As you can see right now, we're doing
one for one of our TV productions.
It's a day shot.
This is still the current technology
we're using.
It's a really great workhorse printer
for us.
On average, we can have about 200 to 300
people working in the Mill at any given time.
We're one of last studios to have
all the services in-house.
Many of the studios have downsized
and have gone and outsourced that.
Yes, I'm a third-generation
Warner Bros. employee.
My grandfather was a cameraman
for Jack Warner.
Then my father,
he was in construction, dispatcher.
And then myself,
I work in construction as well.
This is a wonderful place to work.
They really do care about the employees.
You find people here that are on a day call.
They're on a day call for almost 30 years.
So it's a great studio to work for.
Original sound stages were built
in 1926.
And at that time
they were Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Every time they built a new sound stage,
they changed the numbers...
...keep could them in chronological order,
zigging and zagging through the studios.
So Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4
are now Stages 10, 11, 12 and 14.
No 13 because that's unlucky,
so we jumped that one.
The first four stages were very big,
because they were primarily for movies.
When television came around,
they put walls between--
In the middle of the stages and turned
them into two smaller stages...
...so that they could double up
on the space for television.
But the walls are removable so they could
take them down when need be...
...and turn it back into a big film stage.
Each one of the stages have a small tank
that they can open up.
And you can either do water scenes in there
or have staircases...
...going down from the original set.
So all the sound stages have those pits,
they call them.
Stage 16,
my favorite sound stage on the lot.
We call it the ocean with a roof.
The whole floor is removable.
And then below that,
it goes down about 25 feet.
It can hold 2 and half million gallons
of water.
And in the movie Perfect Storm, that
George Clooney did with Mark Wahlberg...
...the entire 72-foot fishing vessel
was being tossed around...
...by the hurricane-force winds
in that sound stage.
They had about 15-foot waves
hitting that ship for about three months.
Built in 1935.
It was just a baby
when a movie was being shot in there...
...called Cain and Mabel.
And Marion Davies was a very
high-maintenance actress, shall we say?
She was convinced that the set that they
were gonna build in there was too small.
Jack Warner suggested
to William Randolph Hearst...
...that if Marion wanted
the sound stage bigger--
Because Marion, at that time,
was his girlfriend.
He said, "Well, you know, you could
always pay for it and then we'd do it.
And Hearst said, "Yes."
Now because of the shooting schedule...
...they didn't have time to do the normal
thing, rip the roof off and build it up.
They did something that today you could
never do because it's dangerous.
Literally surrounded the building
with people...
...and they drilled holes
into the base of the building.
In the foundation, they put steel plates.
And under the plates,
they wedged hand jacks...
...like a jack of a car.
And they put big bass drummers
on each corner of the building.
When those guys got a rhythm going
on the drum...
...everybody at the jacks would crank the
building up a couple of inches at a time.
About a foot off the ground,
they put railroad tiles underneath.
They jacked it up another foot and
they kept crisscrossing the railroad tiles.
In essence, making legs.
It kept raising the sound stage
up and up and up to its current height...
...which is actually 65 feet in the air.
And Jack was a very happy man,
because at that time...
...he had the largest sound stage
in the world.
I've been a constant tenant
for over 25 years.
I kind of moved down
this kind of corridor to here.
Stories I was told--
Some I researched, some I was told.
The story was
that William Randolph Hearst...
...at a company
called Cosmopolitan Pictures...
...whose principal artist
was Marion Davies.
And he had a big facility structure house,
more or less, at MGM...
...that was her dressing room.
But it was where he would go
when he was in town...
...where he had access
to his vast publishing empire.
There's famous stories about
a big luncheon for George Bernard Shaw.
There are pictures of everybody
at this luncheon.
Apparently, there was a disagreement
at some point...
...between Louis Mayer
and William Randolph Hearst.
And the story was that Julia Morgan...
...who was his architect,
who designed San Simeon for him...
...actually moved that building,
that structure, in, like, two or three parts...
...to this site where we are right now.
It was a very elegant kind of, you know,
Mediterranean structure.
And they used it for various things.
It was kind of a private home
in the middle of the lot.
Well, the story that I also was told...
...is that when his deal finally ended here,
Hearst moved that house again...
...to a site on Beverly Glen,
which is in West Los Angeles.
When that building left here,
there was kind of a field here.
At that time, Jack Warner
was very infatuated with Frank Sinatra.
He had made a picture
called Ocean's Eleven...
...which has gone on
to live other lives as well.
And he really wanted him
to be on the Warner lot.
And, actually, this building
was built for him in the early '60s.
It had a very Asian style.
There was grass cloth on the walls,
Frank's desk was right here.
Apparently out there
is a rubber tree plant.
There's a song called "High Hopes"
where they mention a rubber tree.
It's a rubber tree out there.
And there was a piano here.
I mean, I've seen pictures of it when Frank
had it, and he had it for about 10 years.
And this whole area was his--
It was called Artanis,
which was "Sinatra" spelled backwards.
He left and First Artists was created.
The principals of that
were Barbra Streisand...
...and Steve McQueen and Sidney Poitier.
It was put together
by Freddie Fields at CMA...
...for all his big stars
to have their own company.
And that was in here too
for about 10 years.
And then when that dissolved,
Spielberg moved in and he was here...
...through the big kind of run
of his Warners pictures.
And then Dick Donner moved in.
And when Dick Donner left, we moved in.
I feel I don't even know a time when
I wasn't here but, of course, that's fantasy.
I've been here, on and off, since--
Really, since the late '70s.
Warner Bros. during World War II
was making war movies...
...or putting war elements into every film.
With Casablanca,
the studio knew they had two things.
They knew they had Humphrey Bogart...
...who the studio realized
was going to become a romantic star...
...and they knew they had something
really special with Casablanca...
...because it was a war story
without the combat.
What happens
with an international mix of people...
...in a foreign country
as the Nazis are closing in...
...and trying to take over the world.
And you had a hero
who was a reluctant hero.
And you had a fallen woman
who was the female romantic lead.
And you had the upstanding
knight in shining armor...
...Paul Henreid in his white suit.
And you had an international mix
of people...
...who were fighting the Nazis
within Vichy France's Casablanca.
You can say Citizen Kane is a great movie,
but this is the Hollywood movie.
Citizen Kane is an experimental film
that just is crackerjack.
But Casablanca has all the elements
of a Hollywood movie.
The big stars, the big music,
the big sets...
...the big lighting, the big adventure,
the big romance...
...all in one film,
and all shot here at Warner Bros...
...except for a couple of quick shots
at an airport.
RICCA: There've been a lot of very
romantic movies shot on this lot...
...but probably this is the ultimate
romantic movie, Casablanca.
This little storefront,
which is now a bookstore right now...
...is the last standing set of Casablanca.
This is the actual set.
It's the same one from 1942.
There's a very quick but memorable
flashback scene in Casablanca...
...where Humphrey Bogart and
Ingrid Bergman are seated right out here...
...at a little outdoor caf? in Paris.
And they're listening to the announcements
of the soldiers coming closer to Paris.
It was shot right here.
So this is the exact spot.
And we get people on the tour
who just are in awe of this location...
...because it's still here
after all those years.
Jack Warner got into television
at the request of the president of ABC.
And what Jack thought was
he would kind of do what Walt Disney did.
He would use television
to promote his theatrical films.
He still wasn't convinced that the studio
could make money off of television.
The first season was actually
three television shows...
...based on Warner Bros. feature films.
One was Casablanca,
the other was Kings Row.
So you had a major World War II
romantic film...
...and you had a major
American soap opera.
How could these two fail?
And he threw a Western in
as the third show...
...and it was called Cheyenne.
And Cheyenne was the one that took off.
The guy who had developed Cheyenne
was a writer named Roy Huggins...
...and Roy had written a detective novel
that had been published.
When they were looking
for something different, he said:
"Well, I can give you a detective show."
And so 77 Sunset Strip
became the second big genre...
...that Warners did in television.
ZIMBALIST:
I didn't wanna do it.
I didn't wanna do a series, be in television.
I'd done that in New York...
...and I came out here
because I thought it was movies.
They showed me a little clause
in my contract...
...that stipulated
that I had to do television.
So I made this pilot, 77 Sunset Strip.
Everybody loved it, we loved it.
And it was an entr?e to all kinds
of situations and places and so forth.
It was a wonderful feeling
to be in a show like that...
...that just made the world happy.
And it did, you know.
Everybody was crazy about it
and so were we.
One of the things that disenchanted
Jack Warner about television...
...was in the '30s when Jimmy Cagney
was upset with his contract...
...he had to fight Jimmy Cagney.
And when Bogart was fighting,
he had to fight Bogart.
With the television stars...
...where some of them
were being paid 75 dollars a week...
...all of a sudden, all the TV actors
were coming at Jack Warner saying:
"We want a raise."
And so Jack was kind of losing interest
in television...
...because all of a sudden,
he wasn't fighting one war...
...he was fighting five or six wars.
And the other thing that happened, because
they only had one customer, ABC...
...if ABC rejected a show, that was it,
they were done.
And so when the ABC series
started to die out...
...that was kind of the end
of Warner Bros. in television.
James Dean was my idol.
I was 15 at that time and, you know,
I was doing plays in high school...
...and I knew I was gonna pursue a career
as soon as I got out of high school.
I had no intention of going to college
and so be it.
Somebody told me about this young actor
that had just come out in East of Eden.
I'd never heard of him
and I went to see it.
I remember
I went to the Saturday matinee...
...and I saw him
and it was a double feature.
I couldn't tell you what the other film was,
but I had no interest.
But I could hardly stand up.
I saw the film three times that day
and I could not get over him.
I was just never the same.
None of us were.
Even people
that were not interested at all in acting...
...were affected by him, you know?
Boys and girls, rich and poor,
black and white, old and young...
...everybody was just absolutely captivated
by this extraordinary genius.
This young genius
that was gone at age 24.
He changed everything about...
...what I had perceived an actor might do.
You know, film acting, what it was about,
because he really transcended it.
It was about behavior.
He just absolutely mesmerized me
and became my hero.
And I couldn't believe
that he was already gone...
...as I was discovering him.
I worked on the pilot
for Harry O with David Janssen.
And I worked with Sal Mineo.
He and I played villains together.
I drove him nuts, asking him
to tell me about James Dean.
And he told me one story here that
Dean was practicing his makeup for Giant.
And he came walking across the lot.
Sal told me he was going
the other direction.
Old guy said, "How you doing, man?"
Sal said, "I'm fine, how you doing?"
Then he heard this laugh and he turned
around and it was James Dean.
He was in his older makeup for Giant.
And he'd fooled Sal Mineo.
And he and I worked on this pilot...
...and he finished earlier than I,
a day earlier...
...and he came by just to say goodbye.
And I told him what a pleasure it was
and I hoped that I hadn't bothered him...
...asking him so much about James Dean.
And he said, "No, no."
He said--And you know what he said?
"He'd have liked you."
And I broke into tears.
I thought, "Wow, Sal Mineo thinks
that James Dean would have liked me."
I thought, "Okay."
ROTH: We know all about the legend
of Warner Bros. animation.
We know the legend of Mel Blanc and these
brilliant characters, these iconic characters.
We are well aware and are huge fans
of the original Merrie Melodies.
And Looney Tunes,
we are the gatekeepers of all the product...
...that originally came from that library
of brilliant product.
GEER: Way back in the '30s,
it was Merrie Melodies...
...and then they introduced
Looney Tunes.
There was a man, Leon Schlesinger,
who ran and owned Pacific Title.
And Schlesinger apparently
was a pretty wealthy man.
And he'd helped finance Warners
when they made The Jazz Singer.
They owed him one.
So he went back to Warner and said:
"Let us be your Animation Department."
So he had then brought three
or four people from the old Disney crew.
Friz Freleng was one of them.
Chuck Jones.
There was Bob Clampett, Tex Avery.
And these guys did all kinds
of amazing things with animation...
...that hasn't been done since then,
really.
And Avery said,
"We're gonna make another rabbit, guys.
Draw me your picture
of what the rabbit looks like."
So the different animators
were drawing their idea...
...of what the rabbit should look like.
And there was a guy
named Bugs Hardaway.
That was his nickname, was Bugs.
So as he was going out to lunch,
he dropped his drawing on Avery's desk.
Bugs' rabbit.
That become Bugs Bunny.
Warner Bros. had been absolutely
in the animation business...
...from the '30s all the way
until the late '60s.
And then at that point, there was a rest.
And it wasn't until 1980...
...where Warner Bros. Animation
was restarted.
And what also happened is,
as the Warner Bros. Studio grew...
...and the company grew,
so did our library.
So when we started off
with the Looney Tunes...
...eventually we were also able to add
the Hanna-Barbera library...
...the MGM animation library
and the DC Comic characters...
...to probably one of the largest
animation libraries out there.
You can feel how many people came
before us...
...that worked on these movies
and cartoons.
And that we have the opportunity
to be here in their footsteps is incredible.
ZIMBALIST:
This studio was my home.
I loved it and I do still.
I mean, I don't come here anymore.
I'm a stranger.
I don't know most of the buildings here.
But it was my home, and those days...
...when it was just Warner Bros.,
it was just Jack Warner.
See, I came to Warners
right after the big rift with his brothers.
They collaborated,
they hatched this plot...
...where everybody would sell his stock
and then buy it back cheap.
Only trouble was, when the brothers
came to buy it back...
...it was all in Jack's hands.
And Jack kicked the brothers out.
Later when Seven Arts
bought Warner Bros...
...they came to Jack Warner and said:
"We're going to give you
$34 million for the studio...
...and you'll still have your office,
you'll still run things, you'll be the boss.
We'll just be the owner, that's all."
The irony with Seven Arts is that
Eliot Hyman had bought the rights...
...to Warner Bros. films for television.
And with the money
that he made off of that...
...he then bought Warner Bros. in 1967.
So the irony is
Jack sold the films to him...
...and then Jack ended up
selling the studio to him.
Father and son team, Eliot and Ken Hyman,
didn't stay at Warner Bros. that long.
I think their tenure here
was only about 19 months.
Seven Arts were distributors.
They hadn't been really producers.
They were a distribution company.
It was an odd period in time
because Jack Warner's power base...
...was reasonably on the demise.
He was developing 1776, the musical,
as a film...
...and I don't know the deal
or the agreement.
But he was retained
as the vice president of the company.
ZIMBALIST:
Well, a few weeks after the thing...
...no piece of business
passed his desk again.
He never saw anything.
And finally, they asked him to leave
and he just got out.
RICCA:
The backlot, it's 14 different sets right now.
It used to be much bigger,
but some of the production offices...
...have taken over spots.
Well, we're here on New York Street
and it can be any city really.
I've seen it transformed into London,
into San Francisco.
But primarily, we see this as New York,
sometimes Chicago.
A lot of the gangster movies
were shot along here.
There was always somebody in a car,
blowing out windows with a Tommy gun.
The movie theater over here
was in A Star Is Born with Judy Garland.
Opening scene
of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?...
...with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford,
when they zoom in, that was here.
One of the biggest sci-fi movies
of the '80s, Blade Runner...
...with Harrison Ford and Daryl Hannah,
they transformed this entire street...
...into futuristic Los Angeles.
Lots of neon and kiosks,
and a very strange-looking world.
In 1952, the New York Street
burned to the ground.
They took photos
and film of the burnt sets...
...and they used them for stock footage.
We had two Western towns, but, you know,
they just don't do Westerns anymore.
Those kind of fell by the wayside.
Blazing Saddles used one of them.
And shows like Bonanza,
Little House On The Prairie.
Then we also have a jungle set,
which is just a bunch...
...of various trees and bushes and things,
but it's a few acres.
This is the jungle
and the jungle lagoon.
This lagoon can be filled
for production.
It's filled right now, but we never leave it
filled for safety reasons...
...and for bugs and things like that.
There's a production about
to shoot in here, so they filled it up.
This entire area
was planted and designed...
...for the movie Santiago with Alan Ladd.
It's been a lot of things.
It was Central Park in The Omega Man...
...with Charlton Heston.
Pee-wee Herman swung across this
on his bicycle in Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
Probably the most famous thing
to shoot here was just a few years ago.
It was Ira's Roadside Diner
in Million Dollar Baby...
...Clint Eastwood's film.
And this was the diner
that they go to get the lemon pie.
Pretty pivotal scenes in there
with the lemon pie...
...was all about the ending of the movie.
But I won't tell you if you haven't seen it.
We are on probably one of the famous
streets at Warner Bros. studios.
This is Brownstone Street,
or was Brownstone Street.
It's been renamed Ashley Boulevard
for Ted Ashley.
It was one of the first streets
built here on the lot.
So it dates back to a time
before Warner Bros. even owned the lot.
It was First National Pictures back then.
This one right here,
the basement apartment...
...was actually Audrey Hepburn's
in the movie, Wait Until Dark.
A real scary, wonderful, popcorn movie.
Midwest Street has been around
since the early '30s...
...used in countless television shows
and movies.
The Music Man
with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones.
Brilliant film.
East of Eden, James Dean.
Big veteran's parade
that went around the town, that was in that.
Recently, we've had J. Edgar out there,
Clint Eastwood's film.
There was a shootout on, like,
the 4th of July, there.
The bunting was all over the building,
so that looked just amazing.
This spot is a very popular area on the lot.
It's called Hennesy Street.
It was named for the production designer,
Dale Hennesy...
...who remodeled this in the early 1980s...
...for the Columbia Pictures' Annie,
which shot here.
That right there,
where it says "Arts and Crafts"...
...that was Miss Hannigan's orphanage.
Most recent movie to shoot here
was J. Edgar.
Leonardo DiCaprio,
Clint Eastwood directing.
Here on the corner, that's a practical set.
Now, that one was used...
...in one of the funniest movies
from the '80s, Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
And that was the pet store where Pee-wee
saves all the animals from the fire...
...at the end of the movie.
This is the only studio that still has
pretty much the same backlot...
...as it had from the early days.
All the other studios have changed,
but we've pretty much stayed the same.
ROMANO:
In 1969...
...Steve Ross, Kinney National Service...
...acquired Warner-Seven Arts and changed
the name to Warner Communications.
And then in 1970,
they installed Ted Ashley, Frank Wells...
...and John Calley as the new management
of the company.
They decided to relocate the corporate
offices from New York to the studio.
Steve Ross was a unique person.
He was sort of the godfather
of the new Warner Bros.
He was a believer
of the entertainment business.
He was also a believer in people.
SEMEL:
I was working for Warner Bros.
I was their branch manager here
in Los Angeles, first in Cleveland.
I got a call. The new boss, Steve Ross...
...would like to have me come over
to the studio.
I came and as I entered...
...what ultimately turned out to be
Bob and myself, our offices...
...there were beads on all of the doors.
They weren't doors actually,
they were just beads.
And I could smell something like incense
or something in the room.
And as I came in, the key executives,
Steve Ross and Ted Ashley...
...they were all sitting on the floor
on pillows in the office.
And I thought, and I've told this
to Steve Ross in the past:
"It's time for me
to get out of this company.
There's something wrong
with these people from New York."
In fact, my job at that point
was to oversee a movie...
...and that was Woodstock.
These guys were, like, living Woodstock.
I thought,
"This could be a disaster for our company."
Needless to say, they were all brilliant.
They were very good executives
and very nice people.
But it was a hard entry for me to think:
"My God, will this be my new bosses?"
I remember that we used to have
three meetings a week in John's office.
These were three days where you took,
you know...
...two to three hours a day out of
your schedule to go to a staff meeting.
And no one ever missed that meeting...
...because they were the most compelling,
humorous, funny meetings.
And it was the way the company was run,
very collaboratively, everybody had a voice.
Even I, as a kind of a young, new business
affairs executive. It was really terrific.
I have the highest regard for those guys.
They were really, really pioneers...
...in the new iteration of Warner Bros.
from the '70s on forward.
They were unique in the way
they dealt with filmmakers.
And if you look at the history of the movies
they made, they were special movies.
Some of them weren't as commercial
as a Batman or a Lethal Weapon.
But they were really unique
and they were really quality movies.
They were a great management team.
These were all unique, very bright people
that Steve Ross picked.
I was a talent agent when I was a kid...
...for a very short time at MCA
with Lew Wasserman.
And then I left there
and I became a manager.
And a promoter. Music.
I became a film producer
in late '60s, early '70s.
I made a film here, I think about 37, 38
years ago, called Oh, God!...
...with George Burns and John Denver
and Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart.
It was a big hit.
And that's how I ended up at Warners.
I was all pinching myself
in those days, all the time...
...because the movie business
was fun in those days...
...and the guys that were running it
were Ted Ashley and Frank Wells.
Terry Semel was the head
of Distribution or Marketing.
I don't remember what.
And they were all friends of mine.
Guys I grew up with.
And it was--It was fun.
The Oceans were great fun to make...
...because the guys
are all close friends of mine.
They're like--All like my kids.
Not Pacino. He's like my father.
But the rest of them are like my kids,
and they're all great guys.
And I--I'm crazy about them.
I'm crazy about Al as well.
Soderbergh is a wonderful director
to work with.
And we had a terrific crew, great staff.
It was, you know,
it was the same crew that-- Throughout.
I worked with Frank, when the original
was made, in the music world.
And I always thought that the film could be
much better than the one that they made.
The were working at night
and filming during the day.
They weren't paying really
much attention to it. I got the rights.
When I came to Warners, it's the first thing
I plucked out of the library.
And I kept it all those years
and then I made it when the time was right.
I got a script and made it.
We had built a casino around the corner.
A whole casino. Looked just like Vegas.
We didn't--
We didn't leave anything out, actually.
We shot Ocean's Eleven in Vegas
and it was very, very hard.
And the guys became such big stars
after Ocean's Eleven...
...that it was impossible to shoot
all of those people in one place.
Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt...
...and George Clooney and Matt Damon
and Don Cheadle and so on.
Elliott Gould and Scotty Caan and so on.
It was impossible to shoot everybody
in a casino...
...because they couldn't have gambling
going on while we were there.
So we built our own.
Sinatra would have loved it.
He would have been in it.
Clooney never would have had a job.
Ha-ha-ha.
When I did The Exorcist here
between '72 and the end of '73...
...it was a trio of guys
who ran the studio.
Ted Ashley, Frank Wells
and John Calley.
Ted Ashley made all the decisions.
His word was final.
He decided to do The Exorcist.
He decided to hire me to do it.
And then Frank Wells
ran business affairs.
And John Calley,
who was a really great executive...
...was my main contact here.
And John Calley
would look at the dailies...
...and if the two executives above him
were getting nervous...
...he would say, "No, this stuff is great.
This is gonna work."
And he was extremely supportive of me.
And I must say that The Exorcist
was totally experimental.
None of this stuff had been done before.
We never previewed The Exorcist.
That was a choice made
by the management.
And I'm very glad they made it.
Because if we had previewed The Exorcist,
I would still be cutting it now.
I didn't do the film as a horror film.
I realize that today, it's considered
the number one horror film ever made...
...by most critics and most audiences.
The first choice by
the heads of this studio...
...Ashley, Calley and Wells,
was Audrey Hepburn.
And I thought that was a great idea.
I spoke to Audrey Hepburn,
who lived in Italy.
I spoke to her by phone.
And she was then married
to an Italian doctor...
...and living in Italy,
and she didn't wanna leave Italy.
She wanted us to go there.
I didn't wanna shoot the film in Italy.
The next choice was Anne Bancroft.
I thought that was a great idea too.
She read the script and said,
"Yes, I'd love to do this.
But I have to tell you,
I just found out I'm pregnant.
Now, if you guys are willing to wait
for a year, I'd love to do the film."
And, of course,
I remember saying to her:
"Anne, I think
when you have your child...
...you're not gonna wanna make a film
for a while...
...and certainly not The Exorcist."
The third choice was Jane Fonda...
...who read the script
and called John Calley and said:
"Why would you wanna make a piece
of capitalist rip-off bullshit like this?"
So she declined to make it.
Meanwhile,
Ellen Burstyn had been calling me.
She said, "I'm destined to play this part.
You believe in destiny, Mr. Friedkin?"
I said, "Yes, I do believe in destiny."
She had no leading roles
as far as I knew...
...but she had been a Catholic...
...she knew a lot about the Church
and its rituals.
I found her very bright and interesting.
And one day I went to Ted Ashley's office
and I said:
"Ted, I think Ellen Burstyn would be great
to play the lead in this film."
And Ted Ashley stood up behind his desk
and he said:
"Bill, I have total faith
that you'll do a great job on this movie.
But Ellen Burstyn will play this part
over my dead body."
He said, "Do you--?
Do you know what that means?"
And I said,
"Well, I have some idea. Yeah, Ted."
He said,
"Bill, let me show you something."
He lied down on the floor.
He said, "Come on over here
and walk over my body."
I said, "Oh, Ted, please."
He said, "No. Come on.
Walk over my body."
And so I stepped forward
and I tried to step over his body...
...and he grabbed my leg.
And I had to hold on to his desk
for support, and he said:
"That's what I will do if I'm dead
and you cast Ellen Burstyn in this part."
A number of years later...
...he was on the board
of the Metropolitan Museum of New York.
He had retired from Warner Bros.
And I met him at the opening of--
I think it was the Temple of Dendur
or some Egyptian room at the Met.
And I said, "Well, Ted, how do you feel
about Burstyn in that part now?"
And he said, "If we had had Jane Fonda,
we'd have done a billion dollars."
My name is Elaine Maser.
I'm the director of costumes
at WB SF Costume Department.
In the building,
we have different businesses.
We have the rental business.
We have a costume shop
where we manufacture...
...and also alterations.
And then we also have designer suites
and cages...
...for prep space for productions.
It's the largest of all the rental departments
in the city.
One of the reasons is
because of our relationships...
...with Warner Bros. Television
and Warner Bros. features...
...that we have an arrangement
with them...
...that we provide costumes
at a reasonable rate for them.
And then all the assets come back
to the studio at the end of wrap.
In the men's contemporary suits,
just contemporary suits...
...there's close to 6000 of them.
Shoes are too numerous to mention.
Ties, there's thousands
of contemporary ties.
I would say 4000 or more.
We have contemporary blouses,
we have skirts, we have jackets, we have....
Anything that we would ever wear
on a film or TV show, we have.
This dress is actually
from The Music Man.
And the way we know that...
...is that there are little tags
on the inside...
...that have the show numbers.
And we can look it up in our reference book
and it'll tell us what the show is.
And from that,
then we can go and get a DVD of it...
...and look and see who wore it.
What we do have upstairs in our shop
is we have the original sewing machines.
Some of them are very, very old and dated,
there's nothing better than them.
There's an old button hole machine they
used to use for heavy, heavy overcoats.
And it's a fabulous machine.
The old Singer sewing machines
are the best machines for chiffon.
And they have been in the shop
probably since the '40s.
The tables we have, we have photographs
from the '30s of the same tables.
We don't throw anything away.
If it's useful for stock, we hang on to it.
Otherwise, we find the right places
to send them.
What I've enjoyed the most is making films
of something that doesn't exist in the world.
You can't go to a department store
and purchase it.
And that's what the interesting thing is
to do.
And I've had the pleasure on working on
a few of those and for Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. always had
interesting people running it.
They never had assholes.
I mean, they always had guys
who understood moviemaking.
Bob Daly and Terry Semel...
...who ran Warner Bros.
for a hell of a long time...
...they worked together like clockwork.
The key is to have somebody...
...who really cares about movies
if you're running a movie studio.
Well, when I came here,
which was December 1st, 1980...
...Warner Bros. was a studio
that had two television shows...
...and was making four or five movies
a year.
We made up our minds
that we couldn't survive...
...with just having a few movies a year
and a few television series.
So we decided to really expand
our film production.
We actually then started to move
to go to 20, 25 pictures a year.
Each of the studios had announced
they're cutting back on production.
They're gonna make fewer films
in the next year or two ahead...
...and that was their mandate.
And we saw that as an opportunity
to really take off.
MEYER:
I had known Bob in his capacity at CBS.
And when Bob came to the company,
and with Terry here...
...they formed a different kind
of partnership.
And it really was also around the time...
...that our television activities
began taking off.
And they really brought the company
into this kind of newer, more modern age.
And especially in the television side
with Bob.
It was a marked difference
than it was before.
We built our television business
to a certain level...
...but we really didn't take it
to the next level...
...until we acquired Lorimar.
Because when we acquired Lorimar...
...we ended up getting not only
good assets, meaning shows.
We ended up getting unbelievable people
that worked at Lorimar.
That moved us to a different level
as an entertainment company.
We ended up broadening our base...
...so we weren't just sitting there,
praying that the next movie would work.
I know one time I called up--
Terry up and I had a sequel to a Dirty Harry.
And I had a project.
I wanted to give it to him.
And he said, "Well, yeah, just go ahead."
And I said,
"Well, don't you wanna read it?
Just in case, you know,
I've lost my mind here."
"Yeah, okay, but I've gotta go
to a basketball game that night."
So he went to the basketball game.
We didn't hurry into it.
He kind of green-lit it
before he really, really read it.
Which, it was flattering in a way
because it shows a great deal of trust.
Steve Ross said all the time:
"Our biggest assets go home
every night."
And basically what he said was,
it's the people.
And that something that stuck with us
and we believed in...
...and still believe in today, is the assets
are the people that work here.
They make up the company.
And in their own--
Everybody that works here is a part
of what makes this studio work.
And I believe in that.
AYKROYD: First time I came to the Warners
lot was shooting Spielberg's...
...magnificent comedy, 1941.
And I think it was my really--
My first exposure to a backlot.
I enjoyed this lot...
...because Clint Eastwood was here
and that was exciting.
I remember he had a parking space.
One afternoon, we were all brought out
to see the damage done...
...to the windshield of a car...
...belonging to a hapless driver
who had parked in his space.
Clint kept a little bat.
If you parked in the space,
everyone on the lot knew...
...you chanced getting a window
knocked out.
Now, whether it was by Clint
or someone else, I don't know...
...but we all came out to see the damage
to this car that this guy had parked there.
EASTWOOD:
When I first came over here...
...Frank Wells and John Calley
had just taken over the studio.
They talked me into doing Dirty Harry and
we had a good relationship on that film...
...and subsequent films of that nature.
I kept coming over here and doing films,
but I never really moved here till 1976.
Frank always lured me over, said:
"The office is always there for you
when you wanna come over."
And I finally--In 1976, I had this project,
The Outlaw Josey Wales, and I said:
"I've got this project. If you like it,
I'll come over and I'll move in."
MEYER:
Clint Eastwood started at Warner Bros...
...we often talk about this,
the same year I did.
In 1971, he came over to do a Dirty Harry,
and in 1971 I came over from ABC.
He's done 35 films in the interim.
I've had various executive jobs.
There's a difference.
I don't think there's any relationship
in Hollywood can compare...
...with Clint's relationship
to Warner Bros.
Its longevity, its steadiness, its comfort,
I think, is really unparalleled anywhere.
Clint Eastwood is an icon's icon.
In a world where there are movie stars
and celebrity directors...
...powerful directors, powerful producers,
I think he occupies unique space.
MEYER: He's a national treasure
and he is a Warner Bros. icon.
I just hope he keeps making films
for as long as he wants to.
As long as he wants to keep making films,
we'll keep helping him.
They have a certain amount of trust in me
managing their money on productions.
And picking projects
that have a chance to do something.
Some of them do, some don't, but you....
I had pretty good odds going along.
COX:
I've done about 30 films for Clint.
And I'm very fortunate
that I have the job I have.
I consider myself to be one
of the luckiest people in this town.
If you look at films we've done
in the last 10 years...
...there is a passion within him...
...for these special scripts
about special stories.
He does films about real people
and real circumstances.
And that's what I think what makes
his films so real to people...
...and the audience that sees it,
because they can feel the emotion...
...that those people have.
FREEMAN:
It was Mike Nichols who said:
"Once you've cast the movie,
the director's job is done."
Clint operates on that premise.
Once he's hired his cast...
...his job as director in that sense
is done.
After that, he's gonna be directing
the movie, not the actors.
I just love that about him.
COX: When you read a script
that Clint's gonna do...
...you see it one way.
You're not inside Clint's mind...
...because he has such a great passion
for doing films.
When he reads it, the reason
he does a script, he envisions that script...
...and those characters
doing certain things.
I remember Frank had only turned me down
once on a project that I brought to him.
And it was a project called
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.
He said he didn't wanna--
Didn't wanna make it.
So I made it over at United Artists
and the picture came out...
...and was received fairy well
and so he was annoyed at himself.
I said,
"You know, it's just all horse racing.
Not everybody's supposed to like
the same thing."
Clint Eastwood is the gold standard
for this business.
For how many films he's made,
how many genres...
...what a gigantic impact,
what a cultural impact.
And then what a great impact
as a director.
How many other guys or women are there
like him out there?
There aren't any really others like Clint.
There are some that come fairly close,
but there's only one Clint Eastwood.
SEMEL: This, of course,
is the Clint Eastwood Scoring Stage.
Well deserved because Clint became
our permanent user of this sound stage.
Many of his movies have been brought
into this facility, but the facility was old.
He would talk to us each time about...
...can we ever make it more modern
and better and bring it up to date?
And we all thought, "Why not?"
They were gonna to tear it down or,
actually, use the outside of the building...
...and build a bunch of dubbing stages
on there.
Every musician in town
was coming up to me and saying:
"Oh, you can't get rid of it. It's is one of
the only last great stages in the business."
And I always had the great memories of
that stage and we had good luck with it.
But they said it was gonna need
a big redo.
All the equipment was antiquated.
So I went to Bob Daley.
I said, "Well, gee, this is gonna be
the last stage of its kind."
And I gave him all the arguments.
And it was a year or two after that,
Bob Daley without--
I didn't even know they were doing it.
He gave the order to go ahead
and refurbish the stage.
One, he was surprised, which was great.
And he didn't know we were doing it.
And secondly,
when you talk about Hollywood...
...there is only one Clint Eastwood.
There is no other Clint Eastwood.
There's no other person like him.
There's no other person who has been
as loyal to one studio without a contract.
There's also no other person
who's been as productive as he is.
One day, they called me and said:
"We want you to come down
and see the new stage."
So I came down there,
it had my name on it.
It was great. I said, "Gee, I didn't realize
this delayed influence.
But it was--It's fine by me."
And I thought everybody'd be happy.
I told him if I'd have known that...
...I would have asked about other things
and had my name on the tower.
But it didn't quite work out that way.
DONNER: Goonies was the first film
we made on this lot.
Steven called me, Spielberg, and said:
"Hey, I'm developing a screenplay
and I really think you'd be perfect for it.
I'd love to see if you would do it."
I read this screenplay
and I just couldn't put it down.
I mean, I was jumping for joy.
It was funny, it was rich, it was warm.
It was very real. It was very Steven.
Steven has a phenomenal eye
for casting and ear.
And we had a great time casting.
Phenomenal. These kids were just great.
And they were real.
And they carried no burdens...
...except their own little personal ones
which had nothing to do with showbiz.
I took it on, and not realizing
what I was getting into.
It was insane.
I was in love with every one of the kids.
The way we're making movies today...
...if you have a pirate ship,
you'll do it in a tank with some water...
...and have a big blue screen
around it and--
Or green screen.
If you want the actors to be shocked...
...by the first appearance of a pirate ship,
they will--
You'll work on them and work on them
and work on them, and then they'll go:
"Oh."
And-- But they're looking at nothing.
Maybe a small pirate ship.
If you're smart, you'll hold it up.
That's what they're supposed
to be looking at.
Mike Riva, one of the brilliant,
brilliant production designers of all times...
...built our pirate ship.
And it stood down
at that end of the stage.
And it gradually started to open
and the walls around it were a great cave.
And it stood in 3 feet,
almost 4 feet of water.
Couldn't make it too deep
because the kids would have drowned.
And they knew something was on the stage
but I wouldn't let them see it.
And they were devious little buggers.
They tried everything.
They put on different costumes,
believe it or not, and wardrobe...
...to try and walk onto the stage
to see what was being built.
And all the security on the stage knew.
They all had pictures of the kids.
Watch this group, keep your eye on--
I'm serious. I'd get calls.
"We caught one of your kids.
We caught one of your kids."
So the day came.
And so we brought the kids in
with blindfolds.
We brought them in the water...
...and had them face away
from where the pirate ship was.
And I explained to them,
"You're gonna turn and see something...
...and it's up to you.
Whatever you react to, you react to."
We pulled their blindfolds off, pushed
them underwater, rolled the cameras.
They came up and stood for a minute,
looking where they had come down from.
They were good. They turned.
They turned into the camera.
Every one of those faces told a story.
"I'm seeing this pirate ship, One-Eyed
Willy, for the first time in my life...
...and it's the most awe-inspiring sight
I've ever had."
It was magic. It was beautiful.
Try and do it today.
Can't have it. It doesn't exist.
It was real, and much reality is gone now
with computers...
...and it's too bad.
But we had that great moment here
on Stage 16 at Warner Bros...
...that can never be repeated.
I feel an excitement
about being on a movie lot.
And this one I know more
than any other lot in Hollywood.
From walking it,
from traveling it on bike...
...from writing about it, and from, I hope,
immortalizing it in some way.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure was a different,
completely different film.
It wasn't about a bicycle, originally.
Phil Hartman, me,
and a gentleman named Mike Varhol...
...were writing a movie
that became Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
Every day we'd walk to the commissary,
walk back and forth on the lot.
We were doing a lot of research
because a big portion of Big Adventure...
...takes place on the Warner Bros. lot.
At one point, I said to two people...
...who were co-producing the movie
and were also my managers:
"How do you get a bike?
Everybody here has got a bike."
I mean, we were walking along
and everybody was riding on bicycles.
I started complaining every day.
I would be like, you know, "I asked
about a bike. How do you get a bike?"
And finally,
I came back from lunch one day...
...and there was a 1947 restored
Schwinn Racer...
...that they had bought for me,
chained up to a post...
...that had my picture right in front
of the bungalow that said:
"Parking for Pee-wee Herman only."
And I looked at it and went, "Oh, my God,
we're writing the wrong movie."
And we, literally,
we ran into the bungalow.
This is-- During this period,
we pulled the paper out of the typewriter...
...and started typing,
"His bike gets stolen."
I mean,
it was a completely different movie.
It was so much fun shooting on this lot.
We shot everywhere.
As you know, we shot all over this lot.
Places that don't exist anymore.
Places we created for the movie
that look like they had been here before.
And then we tried to utilize
as much as we could use...
...everywhere in this whole lot.
I was trying to go for this look of, like...
...what I used to, when I was a kid,
picture a Hollywood movie studio was like.
Where you walked onto the lot...
...and everywhere you looked
was a movie star.
People were wearing their costumes
everywhere.
And it was all--
You know, you'd see giant props.
We felt a great sense of pride
that we were going to...
...make our movie take place
on the Warner Bros. lot...
...and give new life to young people
to know the Warner Bros. lot.
I mean, it sounds corny,
but we took it very seriously...
...and we thought
we were doing something really cool.
And we had a lot of fun,
but we were very reverent about it.
GREENFIELD: We have just under
200,000 square feet in the facility.
And as far as items go,
we have just under 200,000 as well.
Almost everything comes exclusively from
our Warner Bros. shows and feature films...
...and all the past Warner Bros. shows
and feature films.
When the department first started out...
...there was a bit of a lack of antiques
in the Los Angeles area.
When doing a castle picture or period piece,
you'd have to go to Europe and travel.
And it's rumored that there were three
decorators on staff here at Warner Bros...
...and each would spend a particular...
...three-month time period in Europe,
buying antiques.
They'd rotate and bring those items
back into the house.
They'd be used on pictures.
And, slowly, the stock built up...
...and they've put that position to rest,
unfortunately.
Our chandelier and torch?re section.
You're looking at one of a pair
of Baccarat torch?res.
Probably the most valuable thing
in the prop house.
Two schools of thought here.
One, folks say they're from
Czar Nicholas of Russia.
The other is a casino built in '30s in Paris
and went defunct.
We're not sure how we got them.
Found in the basement a few years back.
They have been seen on-screen.
See them in Omega Man.
See them in My Fair Lady.
It takes two gentlemen a week
to take them apart and put together.
And that same time to get them back.
We do not rent them out.
They're worth about $2 million for the pair.
Maybe three, depending.
Everything here is samurai.
The samurais you see here
were from the front part of Inception.
The opening sequence.
You can see they're a little bit scorched.
When the dream collapses in Inception,
the place catches on fire.
These were crushed underneath debris.
We've kind of pieced them back together.
This collection is now available for rent.
We have been doing this for so long...
...we have one of the largest collections in
Hollywood and most of the United States.
We have a smattering
of just about anything you'd want.
From 1840s on up to current day.
Beetlejuice, I think one could...
...honestly say,
without any reservations...
...is original.
Might be my favorite thing
I've ever done.
It's a little art piece out of the creativity
and the mind of Tim Burton.
He has such a great sense of humor,
and he loves to laugh...
...and he just makes you feel good.
He's inspiring.
You know, right away,
you wanna do right for him.
I'd had met him three or four times
and I knew that I liked the guy.
I just couldn't understand
what the movie was.
And I think he may have started
showing me sketches.
That was really more than intriguing.
That was....
I felt, "Wow, this guy
has got a great imagination."
This is a true artist I'm dealing with.
I liked the guy, but I couldn't get from him,
really, very clearly, what exactly it was.
Finally, I remember us meeting one time
in a Mexican restaurant...
...on Lincoln Avenue in Venice.
It wasn't too far from my house,
and I said:
"Let's just go. You and I just go sit
and talk for a minute."
He said a couple of things
that gave me an idea.
He said a couple key things
that I took home and said:
"Okay, let me run with that."
And then I just started inventing
a walk and a voice and an attitude...
...and I had an idea about the teeth.
Well, I never rehearsed it.
I just showed up on the set, thinking:
"Boy, I hope this works
because there's no going back."
And the great thing about Tim
was when he saw it...
...his eyes just kind of lit up
and we just kind of ran a scene.
And everything from then on was,
"Yes, and...."
People forget
about how good that cast is.
You know, Catherine O'Hara
and Alec Baldwin...
...and Geena Davis
and, you know, Glenn and all those--
I mean, just really, really, really talented
group of folks and really well-cast.
And Bo, you know, his design
was really, really extraordinary.
My husband's a production designer
and he designed Beetlejuice.
What a great script
for a production designer...
...because it's really about the sets.
The main conflict is the dead people hate
how we redecorated their home.
That's--It's all about that.
And all the furniture....
What kind of character is this guy?
All the furniture could hurt you.
Our dining room chairs
were skinned rabbits pulled tightly.
Ha. The sculpture tried to kill me.
I wasn't necessarily sure that an audience
would show up, but it kind of didn't matter.
I knew I enjoyed it. I knew that there was
something that was really fun about it...
...that probably would translate
to somebody.
They sent a trailer.
And I thought it was one
of the greatest things I had ever seen.
I remember thinking, "Holy moly,
I'd go see that movie in a heartbeat."
GIBSON:
When you're working on a Donner film...
...he's got this sign above his door
when you go in there:
"Leave your ego at the door."
When you engage in any kind
of production where he was helming it...
...he left his stamp on it.
It was wide-open
and there was no baloney.
He has an intrinsic kindness...
...although he's got rough edges
and he plays some mean jokes.
He loves what he does
and he conveys that to the people...
...and everyone has a good time.
Casting Mel and Danny was Warner Bros.
There was on this lot...
...one of the great casting directors
of all time, lady named Marion Dougherty.
When I was doing Ladyhawke,
she helped me a lot with the casting.
When time came to do Lethal Weapon...
...Marion came to me in my office
and said:
"How about Mel Gibson?"
I said, "God, I tried to get him
for Ladyhawke.
Do you think we can get him?"
She says, "It's a telephone call."
We met in London.
It was a good meeting. I like him.
We had a good laugh.
I guess when he had the Lethal script,
he sort of remembered.
Sent the script,
spoke on the phone.
He said he really liked it
and we had some conversation.
As far as I was concerned, he was it.
"We got him, Marion."
I said, "What about Roger?"
She said, "Well, here's the whole list."
I said, "They're all great actors."
She said, "You know
who would be great for this role?"
I says, "No." She says, "Danny Glover."
But I said, "Marion, what a great idea."
GIBSON:
I'd met Danny at a Venice Film Festival...
...and we were on the way out.
Not like now, like, we're on the way out,
but we were on the way out of Venice.
We bumped into each other,
and I'd seen him in a few films...
...and I was a huge fan.
I thought he was scary in Witness.
I'd seen The Color Purple.
I was like, "I've got to work with you,
somehow, some way."
And he went, "Yeah." And he was like--
We were sort of like, I guess pissing
in each others pockets in the airport.
I remember when Donner
was talking about this.
He thought,
"That's a great idea. Let's go for it."
It's the big guy and a little guy
but the little guy's more crazy.
You know, it was funny.
A wonderful sense of humor.
These two were just instantly perfect,
and they continued that way.
Usually, these kinds of characters
had the two-dimensional aspect to them.
These guys did not.
So you apply that sort of action-film thing
to characters...
...who are a little more fleshed out.
We'd done the third Lethal Weapon...
...and we had reached $700 billion
or whatever it was it had--
It had made a fortune for the studio.
And Bob Daley called one day
and he said:
"I want you to come over for lunch
next week.
We're gonna have a little cake and celebrate
your $100 trillion...."
I said, "Okay, great."
So I started to think about it
and I said, "Jeez."
So I called Bob, and I said, "Bob, listen.
Rene Russo was really active in this thing...
...and I think we should have her
for lunch and it's important."
He said, "Okay."
I thought about it, said,
"What about Jeff Boehm?
The writer who was responsible
for this whole damn thing?"
Bob said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. All right, all right, all right."
I said, "Well, Pesci is in town. Shouldn't
we have Pesci? Make this real fun."
And by the time I was done,
I had six or seven people.
And Bob was very abrupt with me.
And we were having lunch,
that lunch was over...
...he said, "I wanna thank you all."
"In the days preceding you...
...when Calley and Ted
and everybody was here...
...they would have thrown a bunch of keys
on the table and go outside...
...and pick your new Ferrari
just to say thank you."
And Bob was bright red.
And he got up and he threw
a bunch of keys on the table.
And I looked and I said,
"Oh, my God. What have I done?"
He said, "Everybody, go out.
Pick a key and go outside."
And outside were eight
brand-new Range Rovers.
He thought he was getting away
with four Range Rovers.
Instead, he had to truck them
in from San Francisco.
It probably wouldn't be right
to say that Morgan Freeman...
...is the best actor in the world.
And there are 7 billion people now
in the world.
But he stands among those
who would qualify for such a status.
He is an extraordinary actor...
...and he's as good a guy
as he is an actor.
He's really a wonderful man.
At the time,
based on the Stephen King novella...
...Rita Hayworth and the
Shawshank Redemption...
...from which we developed Shawshank...
...there was no thought
that the character Red...
...as he was named in the book,
would be an African-American.
I saw this film Morgan had done
called Street Smart, an early film...
...where this guy who could be
so emotionally powerful and compelling...
...also could be extremely tough.
FREEMAN:
When I got the part, I got the book.
And I read the first paragraph
and I put it down...
...because I wasn't gonna be able
to play the book.
You know, Red was an Irish guy.
You know, it was too far away.
HORN: The fact that he did Shawshank,
which has now become....
...I mean, it's on everybody's
top 10 or 20 or 25 list.
We're very, very proud of this movie.
Now, over the years, the relationship
with Morgan just deepened...
...and I just found myself really liking him,
becoming friends with him.
And he brought a special thing
to the films he did.
FREEMAN:
I started working my voice...
...when I was doing
The Electric Company.
But it never occurred to me...
...that there was anything special about it
from the outside.
Straight from the inside,
I'm just gonna listen to myself.
But this all started
with Shawshank Redemption.
Narrating that story.
HORN: We had bought the rights
to March of the Penguins...
...through Warner Independent,
and it was in French.
We thought, what we need to do
is to convert this to English...
...and we need to have a voice-over done
by somebody.
And when anyone thinks of a voice-over
for anything...
...they think of Morgan Freeman.
He was asked to do it and he said no.
And I called him and I said,
"I need a favor."
And he just said, "You got it."
Alan called me and said:
"This is a great little documentary.
I'm gonna send it to you."
It was the most fascinating thing
I'd ever seen.
HORN:
He came in and he did it.
One-take Morgan, you know.
Two hours later, he was done with it.
And yet that resonant voice.
I told him, "When I can't sleep at night,
if I have problems, you know...
...I just turn on one of the Morgan movies
and I'm just fine. I'm just comfortable."
Because there's something soothing,
comfortable about his voice...
...that I think everyone feels,
which is why he's so popular.
My success with voice-overs,
biggest surprise of my life.
[FREEMAN LAUGHS]
ROMANO: Television now is a huge piece
of the Warner Bros. business.
We have a thriving,
very strong television business.
When I came out here in 1970,
we really had only one series, FBI.
And Warner Bros. Television,
even as it grew...
...never really had
that big a television presence.
We had Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,
a couple of TV series.
Warner Bros. actually became quite
successful in the movie-of-the-week genre.
David Wolper came aboard
Warner Bros. Television...
...and was one of the inventors...
...and if not,
an expert in creating the miniseries...
...which also was a lot of television
programming in that period of time.
The television business changed
for Warner Bros...
...when we acquired Lorimar
and brought in their television executives...
...their head of production,
their syndication people.
The Warner Bros. Television operation
really started to grow.
ROSENBLUM:
We're still the leading supplier...
...of television programming
across the television industry.
We produce for all the broadcast networks
and most of the basic cable networks.
We have on the television side some
of the best creative talent in the business...
...and they've been with us for years.
John Wells, for example,
predates me here at Warner Bros.
Jerry Bruckheimer has been here
10-plus years.
J.J. Abrams is here now. Chuck Lorre
has been here for a very long time.
The talent that comes here and works
with our executives and this beautiful lot...
...and works with all of our executives
around the world...
...knows that the culture at Warner Bros.
is one that nurtures creativity...
...it supports creativity,
and it certainly rewards creativity...
...when the creativity is successful
in our business, in the television business.
We have the best facilities.
We have the largest and most beautiful lot.
Our stages are storied in their history.
To go to Stage 24
and to realize you're on the stage...
...in which Friends
changed the course of history.
It's an extraordinary experience
and feeling.
And that's kept alive by the people
who are part of Warner Bros.
After ER finished its run here
at Warner Bros...
...we converted those stages
to live tape stages.
And Ellen has three of those stages now.
And it's a world-class
production facility...
...for a Monday-through-Friday
daytime talk show.
On the backlot,
we also now have Conan O'Brien's show.
So the lot has evolved
with the expansion of our business.
The lot's not just being used anymore...
...for prime-time shows
and for theatrical product.
We have first-run syndicated shows.
We have basic cable shows.
And as our business expands,
our use of the lot expands as well.
Probably one of the most successful series
that we produced here in Warner Bros...
...in the last 13 years,
and that's The West Wing.
That began when Aaron Sorkin...
...who had written a feature film called
An American President...
...he wanted to tell more stories
about the inner workings...
...of how the White House and the staff
that serviced the president would work.
So he created this show.
He dared to be different.
He dared to be alternative.
He dared to try something that had never
worked in the history of television.
And the result was, not only one
of the most successful series in history...
...but the most awarded series
in television.
I kind of backed into The West Wing
because I had done...
...The American President
with Aaron Sorkin.
We became friends
and I became a fan of his as well.
Then a few years later, I got a call
asking if I would be interested...
...in playing a part called The West Wing,
and that I would play a president...
...but there was only a few scenes
in the pilot...
...and that I would not be asked
to do more...
...than maybe three or four episodes
in the season.
I said, "Oh, that's grand."
The only requirement was that I couldn't
play another president anywhere else...
...as long as that series was on the air.
I said, "What are the chances?"
And so I signed on
and I was happy as Larry.
And then just a few months after the pilot,
or even less, it seemed...
...I got a call asking if I would be interested
in being kind of more of a regular.
I never thought I'd be on television.
People telling me this is political.
It's not gonna go,
you'll probably do the pilot.
I wasn't very savvy about television shows.
I still don't think I am.
I don't know how anybody figures
what's gonna work.
The fact that it did, it kept surprising me.
I wasn't one--And I never read the trades
and read the ratings.
I didn't care any of that stuff.
Somebody will tell me...
...when I have to stop showing up.
I'm not gonna worry.
I'm just gonna show up, learn my lines.
But I secretly was crossing my fingers
and hoping I wouldn't get that phone call.
I like working. I really like being part
of a group of people...
...working on something
as good as West Wing.
I was so proud. I never had an experience
where I've worked that I wasn't proud of.
I imagine that would be hell.
I would just have so many moments.
I just think how lucky I was. I'd smile.
I'd feel happy that I was doing what I loved.
SHEEN:
I had a ball here.
Seven of the best years of my life,
working with some of the best people.
Not only that I had ever worked with,
but that I had ever met.
When we started,
President Clinton was in the White House.
And he was a great supporter.
He loved the show.
He was aware of our progress
and our administration.
But then he left office,
and it got a little dicey...
...with the, ahem, next administration.
He was not such a big fan of the show,
or me in it.
We were free, of course, to do things
with a fictional White House...
...that the president could not do.
So we had the advantage of writers,
and he had the disadvantage of history.
[LAUGHS]
I remember the casting process of Friends,
for sure.
I remember coming here...
...and they were casting Friends and ER
at the same time.
So I remember--
You know, you try to see
who's reading for your part.
You just try to gauge.
And it was impossible because there were
all these people for that hospital show.
I remember thinking,
"Another medical show? Really?
All right. Well, good luck."
Um-- Ha, ha.
When I did the pilot for Friends,
I had no clue...
...that it was gonna be a hit,
get picked up. Nothing.
I met the other cast members
at the table read.
When I got the part of Phoebe, I didn't--
No one was cast except David Schwimmer.
I think I was the second person cast.
I read the role of Chandler.
I pictured a snarky, gay guy.
And I didn't know
how it could be anything other than that.
And then Matthew Perry, I meet him,
and I thought, "Okay, well, he's not gay.
I wonder how this will...?
Anyway, let's see."
And then he reads, and his sense of humor,
his timing, his rhythm is so unique...
...and I was blown away.
That first season,
the show hadn't aired yet...
...and Jimmy Burrows,
he'd directed the first 12 episodes...
...and he decided that the six of us
should go on a trip to Las Vegas together.
He got Warner Bros. to give us
the Warner Bros. jet to use.
And he showed us the first episode
after the pilot on the plane ride.
It was so thrilling.
It was such a great idea.
And then he took us to dinner
and he said:
"Pay attention right now,
because this is the last time...
...that the six of you will be out in public
and you won't be mobbed."
And everyone went, "Aah. Ah."
Chris Nolan is a unique individual,
as well as an incredibly unique filmmaker.
He has such a singular vision...
...and such a notion
of what the movie is...
...that we green-lit Batman Begins
off of his pitch.
It had that clarity of vision.
It had that sort of--
His ability to convey ultimately
what the movie would be...
...without even having read a script.
To do that, you really have to have
just an incredible sense of the material...
...and an incredible ability
to communicate it.
I had never pitched projects, really,
until Batman Begins.
The thing with Batman Begins
is we had a strong concept...
...we had this little gap in movie history.
Batman had been addressed very, very
successfully as a movie character...
...by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher
and so forth.
But there was this funny little gap
that no one had ever made the origin story.
No one has ever made
the version of Batman...
...that equated with the version of Superman
Dick Donner had made in the late '70s.
And so it was an easy pitch in a sense.
It was, let's put an extraordinary character
in an ordinary world.
Not the stylized world that Tim Burton
had so brilliantly put across...
...and a character who fit in that world.
More the Superman treatment
Dick Donner had done. This sort of epic...
...populated with incredible actors
doing supporting roles and so forth...
...and creating a sense of reality.
Shooting on real locations,
that kind of thing...
...where Batman would become this
extraordinary figure, walking on the street...
...and as surprising to the characters
in the film as he should be to the audience.
Each film he makes is a step forward
in terms of filmmaking for him.
They're bigger films,
more challenging films...
...they're more complicated movies.
And he just keeps raising the bar
for himself.
And for someone in my job, it's a real
privilege to be around a guy like Chris...
...because everything he does
is so spectacular.
And it's exciting to watch,
it's exciting to be a part of.
It also challenges you to sort of
raise your game and raise your bar...
...and try and step up to his level,
which is really hard to do.
NOLAN: I first pitched the idea of Inception
to the guys at Warners...
...right after I finished Insomnia.
But I felt...
...despite their enthusiasm
for the broad concepts I pitched them...
...I said I wanted a film
about dreams and architecture...
...most of it's set
in the first-class cabin of a 747.
I think that was the comprehensible part
of the pitch.
They said, "Whatever you wanna do.
We'll take a look at it."
I decided I wasn't really ready to write the
script or I wasn't really ready to finish it.
And it took me really about 10 years
to finish the thing.
And then we brought it
to the guys at Warner Bros.
And we had them read it together
very quickly...
...because we wanted to keep it secret and
we were in a rush to get the film going...
...because I knew that I wanted to come
back and do the sequel to The Dark Knight.
There's a handful of people like Chris.
He's just turned 40,
and if you look at his body of work...
...I think for his age and his time,
he's the guy, you know.
He is sort of the preeminent filmmaker,
I think, of his generation.
You finish a film, then you sit and watch it
with the audience...
...and then you start to know
what it is you've done...
...where you're taking things and
what questions you have left to answer.
And I always like to try and carry over...
...a set of questions from one film
into the next.
It's a great feeling of pride
when you pull in Gate 4 each day...
...and see behind you
and to the right of you...
...and to the left of you
postproduction facilities...
...supporting all different disciplines
of sound.
We have 12 buildings on the lot
dedicated to sound.
And also in the support of picture editorial
and projection services.
We have 16 stages for mixing sound.
We call them rerecording stages.
We have five stages called ADR stages.
And it's automated dialogue replacement.
We have two Foley stages.
We have eight screening rooms
for projecting film.
We have 125 sound editorial
and design rooms...
...and another 120-odd
picture editing rooms.
So that starts to give you a picture
on the scope of the operation.
We're in Building 4,
which is the headquarters...
...for Warner Bros.
Post Production Services.
It's a large building, approximately
120,000 square feet...
...of sound-and picture-editing space.
So today, we're gonna give you a little look
at the diversification...
...that our department's have been through,
taking you into the audio underground.
This is one of our new dynamic
audio underground mixing environments.
Come on in.
This is Brad. Brad's been mixing
at the studio for many years.
He's working
with Pro Tools based technology...
...where all the files are kept virtual.
Gives him a huge amount of flexibility
when he's mixing.
I'm now gonna take you
onto rerecording Stage 5.
This is one of our large theatrical stages.
It was built about 25 years ago
and has been recently updated.
I'm just gonna give you a little look
behind the scenes as we mix feature films.
At the console today
is none other than Steve Maslow...
- Hello.
- ...himself. Ha-ha-ha.
MASLOW:
Just trying to get this right.
Practice makes perfect here.
I very much enjoy doing postproduction
at Warner Bros...
...because they have fantastic
sound facilities...
...and these great dubbing stages
with tremendous height.
So you could really move the air around
the way you do in a very big cinema.
I get a tremendous charge, really,
out of coming to work...
...to work on postproduction of the film
at such a historic studio.
Just the sense of the place...
...and the great filmmakers who have
preceded you here and everything.
It's very inspiring, really.
And so it's something I've--
I've really enjoyed doing over the years.
MEYER: Harry Potter was one of the most
brilliant literary properties to come along.
I mean, the most credit for Harry Potter
has to go to Jo Rowling.
HORN:
Jo Rowling is an extraordinary individual.
I mean, I think the world knows that
by now.
She is extremely bright.
She has a wicked sense of humor.
She's very nice, she's very personable.
I think she knew that when we came
to the subject of making Harry Potter...
...I think she looked at us very closely
to see how faithful we would be...
...to the literary works
which she created.
And what we said to her,
"Our job was to translate Harry Potter...
...these instant classics, if you will,
that she had created so beautifully...
...and translate them to film."
She had questions.
I mean, she said, for example:
"Look, after you guys come out with
this movie, the first Harry Potter movie...
...the world will know
what Harry Potter looks like exactly.
Whereas with my books...
...each person can interpret
for himself or herself...
...exactly what Harry Potter
really looks like.
How tall is he, how curly is his hair...
...his eyes were supposed to be green
and all that.
But now Harry Potter
looks like Daniel Radcliffe."
And we consulted with her
very, very frequently.
She was well aware
of our commitment to her...
...and how thoroughly
we had read her books.
Chris Columbus, when he first came on
and directed the first two films...
...you have to give him a lot of credit
for having cast the kids...
...that ultimately were the three main actors
for all eight movies.
From there, each successive director,
Alfonso Cuar?n and Mike Newell...
...and ultimately David Yates,
who directed the last four films...
...really delivered
on what the key material was in the book.
Diane Nelson deserves a special place
in this history of Harry Potter...
...because more than anyone
at Warner Bros...
...she developed a personal relationship
with Jo...
...that led directly to trust.
And trust was very important for Jo
as we took these books...
...not just one book,
but really all seven of them...
...and translated them to film.
Barry and Alan recognized
that this was different...
...in that Jo Rowling was in the midst
of creating something...
...that was so unprecedented.
We had never seen anything like it.
So her involvement
and our value of her instincts...
...about what the fans are gonna care about
has proven to be really important.
Sequels have a way of often declining
as you go down the road.
This is a franchise...
...where the sequels and the movies
kept getting better and better and better.
I give a lot of that credit to my partner
Alan Horn who had a lot to do with that...
...and was committed and focused
to Harry Potter every step of the way.
And there's something in Harry Potter
that resonated with people...
...regardless of the culture...
...or the geography of where they live,
regardless of age.
It is the best example of storytelling,
certainly our generation, has ever--
My generation has ever seen.
There's something really special there.
It's hard to put your finger on it.
The first time I came onto this lot
was probably 1991 or so.
I came out to L.A.,
I wanted to be an actor.
My agent finally set me up
with the head of casting at Warner Bros.
My head spun with the possibilities...
...and the thrill of the prospect
of doing a movie with Warner Bros.
I would not ever do a movie
with Warner Bros...
...until 2009.
I was looking to do a movie
after The Town...
...and Jeff Robinov sent me the script.
The script was incredible.
They don't make movies like this anymore.
It had no business being as easy as it was
to get ahold of and green-light...
...as a great piece of material as Argo was.
Very hard to do a period film
in the sense that...
...it hampers you from just picking up
the camera and shooting.
It surprised me
how sort of confounding it would be.
You can't see this, can't see that. If you can,
change sign, what's the sign gonna say.
How did it look and--
Just everything is done, like--
It's cars driving down the street, you know,
that you sort of take for granted.
We shot a bunch of Argo on the lot.
Some on stages, the old-fashioned way,
where you build the sound stage inside.
And the rest of it, we shot-- Because it was
supposed to be on this lot in 1980...
...we shot over on one of those
little New York Street areas.
We shot on....
Coming into the kind of
executive parking lot...
...with these gates that open, and we tilted
off to a water tower down to the car.
We shot a big helicopter shot
of the whole studio.
Argo is basically a tour of Warner Bros.
I made sure to use every inch of this place
as I could because it was so magical.
We're at the exterior of Building 38,
which contains--
Houses the film archives
for Warner Bros.
Film over the years deteriorates and needs
to be stored under special conditions...
...as advised by the manufacturers
of the film, Kodak and Fuji and others.
It needs to be stored
in very chilled conditions...
...almost near freezing, and dehumidified.
It preserves the film
and keeps it from turning yellow.
This is it.
Everything that's done out there
results in this.
We're in the manufacturing business
and what we produce is this.
This is what we make.
This is Warner Bros.
This is-- This is the gold.
TSUJIHARA: The core business
of creating great content...
...has remained constant
from 1928 to today.
What's changed
is the way we distribute it.
Whether it's television content
or theatrical film content or video games.
The notion of trying to create
incredibly compelling great content...
...has remained constant throughout.
What has changed
probably in the last 10 or 15 years...
...has been the way that we get it
to the consumer and get it to their home...
...or the way they experience it
at the movie theater...
...has changed dramatically.
The theatergoing experience
has changed.
Years ago,
they were the big barns downtown...
...1000-seat theaters,
some were air conditioned, some were not.
The amenities certainly were a minimum.
Today, they're destination centers.
You have multiplexes of 16 to 25 theaters
with IMAX screens.
You have game rooms,
you have reserve seating...
...you have valet parking,
you have bars in some locations.
You have food service at your seat.
The moviegoing experience
is definitely different than it was years ago.
In North America,
there are about 43,000 screens.
They're about 13,000 of them that have
capability now of playing 3D movies.
The marketing process has changed a bit
over the years.
Now, there are certain things
that stay the same.
Like television, for example.
It's still one of the number one place
that people get their information...
...and are motivated to go see a film
and trailers.
But what's changed is, all the different
platforms that are out there...
...that don't necessarily supplant
old marketing, but supplement it.
So you have to be everywhere now,
and you have to be doing everything.
If you think about how the consumer
accessed our movies 90 years ago...
...the only way they can enjoy our movies
was from watching it at a movie theater.
Fast forward 90 years...
...you now have DVD players,
you have Blu-ray players...
...you have over-the-top streaming services
like Netflix.
You have basic cable channels,
you have network channels.
You have all kinds of different ways
for the consumer to access our movies.
So while the job
of making compelling content...
...and incredibly incredible content
hasn't changed...
...what's changed
is the way we distribute it.
KROLL: In Korea, we were launching
trailers on mobile phones.
And even though we were doing it,
I remember thinking the time:
"Wow, crazy that we're spending
all this time...
...mixing a trailer, making it beautiful.
Somebody's gonna watch it
on a mobile phone, you know.
What a shame."
And now, of course, it's a primary way
we distribute our materials.
Mobile, online.
All these devices,
which, thank God, look beautiful.
But I think about that,
that wasn't that long ago.
There's never been a better time
to be in the production business...
...primarily as a result of these
distribution platforms that are emerging.
When you look at Netflix,
you look at Hulu, at Amazon, at Google...
...they are all buyers, both here domestically
and around the world, for content.
When you have a business
on the scale of our business...
...all of those new distribution platforms
allow us to increase the value of that library.
So as we look out
over the next five, 10, 15, 20 years...
...the production business
is a great to be in...
...because of the expansion of these
distribution opportunities for product.
You were locked down
to either a movie theater or your home.
Now it's-- You can watch our movies
anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
And I think that's the magic of it.
HORN: There's something very magical
about this place.
There's a politeness, there's a courtesy,
there's a friendliness...
...there's a family feeling that one feels...
...at the very first moment
driving on the lot. It's really special.
Warner Bros. is different.
I think that we have a unique culture
and a unique feeling.
If you ask anybody in the industry,
they will they you.
The family that we have here is unique.
I've been on this lot for a very, very long
time. I shot a lot of things on this lot.
When the guard at the gate sends you
through without a ticket on your car...
...that's a good sign, you know.
Warner Bros. Studio is heaven
for a producer and a director.
Everything is here.
You don't have to go anywhere
to get anything...
...to make a picture at Warner Bros.
JANNEY: Coming to Warner Bros.
every day, I knew how lucky I was.
And as time goes on, as more time goes
since I've finished West Wing...
...I realize how lucky
and extraordinary it was...
...that I got to have this experience here.
If Jack Warner were to be able to see
this lot now, he'd be very impressed.
DALY:
I root for Warner Bros. every day. I do.
- It's sort of in my blood.
- Me too.
Wow, how fortunate all of us have been
at Warner Bros...
...being able to be
on this beautiful campus...
...with great facilities,
with very smart people...
...and just a lovely place to work.
Working for Warner Bros. all this time,
I don't know how you put that in words.
You could say it's an honor.
It was a great opportunity.
But working for Warner Bros.
is just a lifetime dream.
The one thing that distinguishes
one company from another company...
...whether it's in the physical facility
or in the executive offices...
...are the people you're dealing with.
One of the things
that distinguishes Warner Bros...
...is that everybody knows
when they come here...
...they're dealing with people
who enjoy their work...
...respect the work of the people
they're dealing with...
...who have been here for a long time
and understand well what they're doing.
That is the one distinguishing feature.
I think Warner Bros. has done such
a phenomenal job...
...in entertaining people over the years...
...that not only do they deserve
a documentary...
...they deserve two documentaries.
So I think you should follow up this one
with a second one.
Ninety-one years.
I definitely get a strong sense
of that amazing Warner Bros. history...
...which is why I like to make extra cash
by giving tours after hours.
People are astounded
by what's happened here.
By the way, I found a wig backstage.
I think it's Judy's wig from A Star is Born
or a dust bunny.
Either way, it's old,
and I am gonna get a bundle for it on eBay.
I have a few times had a problem getting
on the lot because I forgot my ID at home.
But I just tell them
I'm Jane Lynch or David Spade...
...and then they let me right in.
I'm really proud of the fact
that I have a talk show here...
...on the Warner Bros. lot.
Very, very proud.
And even more proud of the fact
that I have a fantastic parking space.
And not only am I proud
that I have a talk show here...
...I'm especially proud
to be the first person to do it.
I feel like a pioneer.
Like the first person
who walked on the moon...
...like Neil Diamond or Louis Armstrong.
I don't know his name.
I didn't go to college.
You can do anything you set your mind to
and you don't have to go to school.
You don't. Remember that, kids.
Happy anniversary.
[English - US -SDH]