- 2 days ago
Writer/Director/Comedy Instructor David Zucker talks to The Inside Reel about moving up, comedy timing and innovation in regards to his new online community/teaching platform: "MasterCrash With David Zucker".
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00:00Ah! Ah!
00:28Oh God!
00:30pairing like a a very straight situation with another person like stucker stucker is still
00:39one of my favorites right airplane you know and you know he was our piano player in kentucky pride
00:45theater that's where oh i did not know that's where we found stucker and that's also in the
00:49book surely can't be serious it's uh you know he we were these guys you know very straight
00:55preppy guys from the midwest and we came out and our piano player didn't come out with us
01:01so we were looking around for and steve stucker showed up and i i just thought this guy's never
01:08going to work i mean he was just as flamboyant as you could be we didn't know from gay and back in
01:141972 yeah and it turned out he was the star of the show we could be on stage doing anything nobody was
01:22looking at us they were they were looking at so you know we just happened to get babe ruth on the
01:28team was it keying in like especially before i get into production the actual writing process of these
01:34things um are they so pinpoint that they can't be messed with at all how did that like in those
01:40sections when he like unplugs and the entire airport comes out like that's very specific but him jumping
01:46into like and then the dinosaurs came all those things they're you know for film students and
01:52looking at that how precise and how rigid were you guys within that structure when you were shooting
01:58versus when you were writing uh very there's no improvisation in our not at all okay got it in any
02:05of our films nobody improvs everything comes from the script all the humor comes from behind the camera
02:11uh actress have made suggestions and you know we were glad to take them uh you know the that whole
02:18the shaking the woman that was just written as they were shaking the the hysterical woman on the plane
02:25and uh and and the actress suggested why don't you slap me and we said okay and then they all slapped
02:32her and then somebody else uh from the crew said how about have a lot having a line of people
02:37you know with guns and knives and baseball bats and we did that so and the fact that i remember
02:45these instances is uh is a reflection of how rare they were that we ever improvised anything on the set
02:52airplane is music there is only one river there is only one sea airplane is dancing
03:04never has the screen been so big you ever been in a cockpit before no sir i've never been up in a
03:19plane before peter graves you ever seen a grown man naked kareem abdul jabbar my name is roger
03:27murdoch i'm an airline pilot leslie nielsen this woman has to be gotten to a hospital
03:32a hospital what is it it's a big building with patients that's not important right now but then
03:37going back to like well the one thing i like going from like pico to the kentucky fried movie
03:42you know yes doing that before what was that spark point was that just okay we have all these these
03:49great skits and we need to sort of build it because that's the hardest thing is for people to do the
03:54first thing and then move up to the next i'll tell you how you're actually absolutely right the
04:00hardest thing is to move up to the next level because hollywood will only let you do what you've
04:06proven you could do before so they were fine with us uh you know uh doing a small theater that was
04:13great but wait you want to do a movie no and and so we wrote the script to airplane was rejected by
04:21every studio every production company and we were kind of you know at a loss and john landis came to see
04:28our show our kentucky pride theater show and he said why don't you do a movie of your show
04:34and so the light went off because we were set on doing airplane i mean we just wanted we knew we
04:40wanted to do airplane so uh we said okay and we wrote a script uh and we managed to get it fine we even
04:48what we did and even so everybody turned down that script so then we put twenty five thousand dollars
04:55of our own money into ten minutes of it to four of the sketches proof of concept okay yeah yeah
05:02got it concept and that got picked up again turned down by every studio and it was picked up by united
05:09artists theater circuit which was an exhibition chain who a friend of ours knew and what they did
05:15they played it in their theaters and so voila people laughed so you know this is hollywood i mean
05:23it's just there's no imagination there's no uh there's there's not much daring i mean the the the
05:31stories are legendary of how you know george lucas had to fight uh for uh for for star wars and
05:40copla had to fight for godfather and and hollywood wanted to ruin it and and you know studio executives
05:48will do that however our executives at paramount were an exception and they were just wonderful
05:55my i i can't thank michael eiser jeff katzenberg and barry diller enough and frank so for being
06:02supportive and letting us do the movie despite our being first-time directors comedy without comedians
06:10uh three of us you know it was crazy i don't know why they let us do it but
06:15in contrast to the uh the executives today who let a guy who just wanted to do a copy of
06:23uh naked gun and with you know a 35 year old idea no imagination no originality and uh you know that
06:32that's hollywood today and and you know the business has contracted it used to be they could they could
06:39roll a dice with a 3.2 million dollar budget airplane and but that returned 160 million dollars just on
06:47its first run and and and so you know uh it's just now hollywood is down to huge franchises comic books
06:59tom cruise movies uh just uh superhero movies they're just doing huge tentpoles so it's it's tougher but
07:09you can still do it and i'm in pre-production right now on a movie it explores the subtle nuances
07:14of interpersonal relationships
07:17of course there are occasional moments of comic relief
07:25the kentucky fried movie is a film that demands the greatest performances from the finest actors of
07:41the cinema
07:42but to say that i mean is it harder because the saturation point is different or whether it was
07:53it harder back in those days because there was no saturation and less outlets available to get
07:59movies seen or is it now is it so chaotic at times that you know 45 years ago it was just easier because
08:09they made more movies now it's now it's tough because the studios are afraid to do anything original
08:16and are afraid to take any chance at all and uh so they'll do a naked gun for with liam neeson they
08:24thought they were replacing leslie nielsen but that's an old idea to use an old guy and uh there's nothing
08:32fresh about it and which but you did for tv you guys did for tv before naked gun ever i mean that police
08:40squad i remember discovering that when i was young and i was right we did something original i don't think it
08:44was really uh right for tv but and uh you know we felt bad for the the network but it was fantastic
08:52because every single one of those episodes is a gem i mean i can say that is a gem oh yeah it's and
08:59and uh we always loved it but we realized that wasn't right for tv tv the laugh track and in those
09:07days interesting okay yeah you needed to watch a family it's like you know cheers wonderful sitcom but
09:13yeah watching a family and they're doing jokes and everybody's it's a it's sitcom lines uh of
09:20course seinfeld was completely different than all that and and of course curb and and gary shandling was
09:28different but most sitcoms are are the same and a lot of people enjoy them i i just you know i i just
09:36am not interested really but i mean your guys relevance with that those kinds of jokes and
09:43those kinds of rules have lasted the test of time all right well you know it's come all the way and i
09:49mean yeah yeah that's because we did something original and we knew what we were doing and we had the
09:54rules so now uh a lot of movies uh they're very contemporary they're very uh you know america-centric
10:04they they depend on a lot of trivia knowledge uh of uh american things so they don't they don't travel
10:14but uh unfortunately our movies uh were spoofs on uh you know either uh disaster movies or cop movies
10:25or horror movies that everybody the audience shared the reference so everybody got it and so they
10:32our most american comedies don't do well internationally but ours for the most part
10:38have done great internationally hi i'm it's like i don't think i can do this
10:45we kind of uh over the years assembled 15 rules that helped to guide us now i i have to say
11:02they're they're only our rules but they do apply to anybody who's attempting to do this kind of spoof
11:09now when you're working with the community uh with master crash but also with the courses i mean do you
11:15look at what you know because a situation or a theme or a setting can set up everything i mean i remember
11:22one of my favorite and i i can replay it over and over is the when you guys put the seek the the uh what
11:30was it the disco sequence inside airplane right there and the way it worked there was such heart in it
11:37between julie and robert and but it was perfectly placed but that was a heart back to the obviously
11:44the war movies obviously zero hour um can you talk about you know finding the right because you want
11:50that still feels timeless and yet it is in a specific time if that makes sense yeah well the the the audience
11:56didn't so much have a reference to world war ii movies but it did have a reference to
12:04the disaster airplane and trouble movie genre yeah and uh specific movies like uh saturday night fever
12:15so we were able to within the airplane spoof we put these satires on specific movies and that worked
12:26and and that that's what we kind of labeled a spoof mobile and so and the wayans did it really well
12:33uh in their movies in in uh scary movie the first scary movie i think they did a spoof on scream and
12:43then they they did some other movies too and then when i did scary movie three and four we spoofed this
12:49movie and that movie and signs in the ring and war of the worlds and you know but you know that's a
12:54hard thing to do we had to hold because we had to hold the story together while going to all these
13:00other movies but i'm i'm really not interested in doing that anymore no i get that what's the what's
13:07the new one you're working on do you mind anyone is a film noir comedy romantic uh it's with a young
13:14cast uh and uh and it's a it's kind of a spoof on there was a movie called detour in 1945 it was one of
13:25the original film noir and but we didn't we used some of that it kind of used that as a base but we
13:33used 10 other movies to make a whole story and what we've done is and this is what we've learned over
13:3940 years is to put the story first and so it's a wonderful story and it's people want to see a good
13:46story and a character who has a character arc and uh and and this has it and the other movie that i
13:54have which is which we're going to do after uh star malta is uh called counterintelligence which would
14:03have been naked gun four before before uh they came in and did they tried to copy a 45 year old movie
14:12so uh and our version of naked gun would have been uh the son of leslie nielsen who would have been a
14:20young character a 30 something andy samber type comic actor and uh and and not even in an la cop
14:29station you know that's where people with no imagination to try to do that we we had them going
14:34down uh international spy spoof so it's called counterintelligence spelled with one l and a j
14:40and it's really it's you know it you're kind of in the world of bond born identity and mission
14:48impossible and that's totally fun and that's but it's it's really the continuation of naked gun
14:54like it should be continued not just yeah a dumb copy like like they just did all these people when
15:01they try to imitate our style probably less successful because they are not aware of the rules
15:08the 15 rules jim abrams is probably looking down at me and saying oh god is david trying to take
15:14himself seriously no i'm not and it's none of your business but but but but with using your your kinds
15:21of structure because i mean you've done yeah ruthless people yeah you know so we've learned story is
15:26everything and one of the things i think we learned from ruthless people we did not write it uh because
15:32we we we wrote and directed top secret which was very funny movie but it didn't perform it wasn't a
15:39hit at the box office and so you know we thought at the time well maybe people didn't want they were
15:45tired of spoof already so uh jeff katzenberg then at disney gave us the script to ruthless people
15:53written by dale launer and we said we read it said this is funny i mean it's not a spoof but we can direct
16:00it and so we kind of teamed with dale and did a rewrite on it and uh and that and that was a hit
16:09but then after that i think we learned that the importance of having a character problem in the
16:16first act and that's what we always did from then on yeah i mean because i mean you were talking about
16:23the international thing starting naked gun off with that beirut scene you know that clicks you in
16:30immediately right and that was the cold open as we say and uh and then immediately leslie lands at
16:37the la airport and he he's got a problem he he's heartbroken because he broke up with his girlfriend
16:45so that's sets up the character's problem he's lonely you know the whole thing so uh and and and
16:52and that worked it worked so he gets the girl in the end uh and and so i think we we learned from
16:58that i think in in basketball another great one that we did and such a such a huge cult uh classic
17:07now uh it's my son's favorite movie all his friends everybody loves it but i think i i made a little
17:16mistake in it in that we didn't give the main character trey parker a intrinsic emotional problem
17:27that he needed to deal it was i thought the bromance would be enough but you know these are
17:33technical things that i've made the mistakes i can save our students in master crash yeah the trouble
17:40of making these mistakes
17:42you
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