Minute 112: “They’re not out yet.”

Transcript

Transcribed automatically from the audio, and imperfect for it — names and punchlines suffer worst. Useful for finding a moment, not for quoting one.

0:00Welcome back to the Matrix Minute, a podcast where we discuss the first film one minute at a time because we just love this movie. Welcome back, it's Wednesday, Courtney's back. Courtney's in the house. In the Matrix. In the Matrix. In the Matrix house. Welcome, Minute 112. 112, right? Yeah, we're all. Yes, 112. 112. One past Neil. And we can just, let's do something because we all know Courtney since the last episode. So, I mean, if you need another introduction. Listen to the last episode. Yeah, specialist, costume designer, podcaster, and all around cool dude.

0:41Thank you. And listen to the last episode. There's a lot of good info there. Right. You know, listen, listen, listen, guys. Phil, be a good host. I'm being a good host. You know how when films, when you make a sequel, there's some exceptions, but usually you want to remind audiences what happened before because, you know, you're asking audiences to, you know, do their homework, which, you know, people are very reluctant to do. Phil, don't have an audience like that. Previously on the Matrix Minute. Previously on the Matrix Minute. So, if you're a host and a guest at your own show, does that make you a ghost? Yes. That's a good one. Ha ha. Ha. Ha ha.

1:22Tim. Ha ha. Okay. Ha ha. Let's just get right into it. Let's get into it. Yes, let's do it. And I'm going to tell you what happens in Minute 112. What happens in this minute, Philip? Tank gives Morpheus in the other two directions for an exit. The agents catch up to their previous location. Smith, more frustrated than the other two when he finds the helicopter cable. Jones and Brown order a strike with the sentinels standing by. They also tell each other that the trace was completed and their location was discovered. That is the Nebuchadnezzar's location. Smith says, they're not out yet. Morpheus is let out of the Matrix via payphone as a hobo watches in amazement.

2:04I thought you were going to say Agent Smith orders a pizza. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Artichokes are my favorite. Okay, so I'm sorry, but me and Tim are going to have to watch. Pepperoni. Oh, Tank Pepperoni as Agent Smith. That's fun. Yeah. Yes. Pepperoni. Pepperoni. Half cheese, half anchovy. Oh, I have a pepperoni story, but. Okay, cool, Tim. So, Morpheus says, Tank, we need an exit. And he's like, all right, got one ready for you. Chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka. As he types away. Hacky, hacky, hacky. Yeah. And then we get into a unique scene where the agents come in from this. Come out, Philip. Oh, come out. Sorry.

2:45I was thinking in terms of movies, like they're coming into the scene. They're entering, you know, like when you're doing plays. They have an exit above their head, but still. You know. Yes. Exit stage left, even. Exit. Exit. And we know we're not in the States because the sign at the door says authorized with an S. Yes. My Google Chrome was set to American English for a little while there and I couldn't figure out how to change it. And every time I spelled anything, it's like, do you mean with a Z? It's like, no, Z is too extreme for the British. Okay. Tone it down. We need a respectable S. Yeah. Yeah. But it's interesting because we also noticed in a couple episodes back, the button at the elevator, as we say in America, but obviously it's lift in Australia.

3:36Yes. And it said lift on it. Yeah. No, we say elevator here too. I think lift is British. So that's weird. Oh, interesting. I didn't know this. Yeah. Yeah. You're our first Australian guest. So probably our last. But... Well, the thing is, sometimes with East... Yeah. Sort of interchangeably. Like East Coast, West Coast. Sometimes we do have different terms for things. So swimwear. Yeah. In Perth, we'll say that they're your bathers. Yes. My hometown. Yeah. So we say bathers. And on the East Coast, they'll say your cozy or... What?

4:17Or skivvy. Skivvy means swimwear. Skivvy? I don't even know what that means. Now they're just making up words. Yeah. I think bathers make sense. You are sort of bathing in water while wearing them. But obviously having to make costumes for the international audience. Yeah. I'd just say swimwear. That sounds... That sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. Just skivvy. Skivvy, man. Are there any other cool words you can share that might be different from... Like specific to, you know, either Perth or Australia? Oh, man. Not off the top. You should have asked me in advance. There are some specific words that we have that... Well, I notice Americans tend to be brand specific where we don't...

4:58We tend to call things by what they are. Other than maybe... So like instead of like Kleenex, you'd be like tissue or something like that. Yeah. It's a tissue. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then... Yeah. Go ahead. We say uni for university instead of college. I don't know. Yeah. That's a British thing. That's a British thing too. It's a very American thing because university is universal. And you have to elongate your O's. College. College. Yeah. Every single time I have to say college, if I'm reviewing an American thing, I'll be... And then he went to college. Exactly. Because college in England at least is... Like high school. High school. Yeah. It's high school and it's also the sort of like the houses within a university.

5:46So like there's the Cambridge colleges. I don't know why it's used college because university is the correct term. If you go to university, a university is a collection of colleges. So it's weird. Yeah. Anyway. Speaking of American accents, I think Agent Smith... Yeah. Hugo Weaving's performance. I have so much more appreciation for it now than ever before. Oh, yes. Because, you know, I just don't understand more about acting. I just go, oh, this guy is rocking it. He's just having so much fun with the cadence and delivery of his voice. Oh, it's so much fun. With the delivery of his voice. And yeah, it's a real, very memorable...

6:26I think this is one of the top things you would remember with The Matrix. Everybody can do the, you know, like the Agent Smith impression. Well, they think they do, but I don't know how many people can actually do it. They start and then they're like, well, actually, it's in my head. It makes plays. I don't mean like effectively. Oh, yeah. But I just mean that it's recognizable. Everybody knows what you're talking about. It's really hard. It's the Darth Vader of this story. Hey, there you go. That's a good one. Um... Oh, God. So anyway, so Agent Smith... Anyway, authorized personnel only. He picks up these leftover holsters and things that Neo is just... The bondage gear. The bondage gear.

7:06He's just shedding from the magical time between Morpheus, Neo, and Trinity. Subtle messages. They didn't invite me. I wanted to join them. Yeah, Tim, you were mentioning earlier, right, that Agent Smith is like, he says, damn it here. Yeah. His... Damn it. His sort of human, not human, but his nonconformist... Yeah, his nonconformist machine brain is... He's loving the interjections. ...is changing because this is... I believe, I seriously, I want to believe at least, you know, Neo, I believe that the Wachowskis put this moment in there to show that Smith is different from the other agents and he's more independently thinking and he's getting emotions.

7:50And he's been affected. Like he said, I've been saturated by it, by, you know, by living with these humans. And so this is like just a natural, as natural as you can get with a machine, development of the complexity of an artificial reality or artificial intelligence here. I noticed, I spent a lot, I'm noticing a lot more about sound editing these days, obviously editing two podcasts. And I noticed that Smith's breathing is actually more present on a track than you would traditionally do. Like it knows whistling. He has a lot of, yeah, that nasal whistling through the whole movie.

8:32Yeah. Yeah. And I'm wondering if that was perhaps deliberate because he is talking about, oh, the smell, it's, you know, it's infecting me. And so maybe, especially in that scene, they were playing up his nasal whistle just to make, yeah, make you focus on that. That's interesting. You heard it here first, nasal whistle. So is it like a high pitch sort of tone or something? No, yeah. I mean, it's just, you can hear it. It's more pronounced. And I have to tell you, you know, doing sounds myself, you know, occasionally, you have a lot of control when it comes to what you can hear and what you can't. And so I'm sure that Dan Davis and associates who've been doing the sound design for this, definitely put that into account because when you're doing a final mix and stuff, you can definitely catch every little nuance.

9:18So I didn't realize until recently that, yeah, when you make a movie, pretty much none of the audio that comes from set is actually used. Like it's generally like a frame of reference. Absolutely. When I was younger, when I was about 15, 14, I didn't get that. I didn't understand what that meant because most of me and my friends have been making movies. Because we all kind of thought, oh, wait, so what's the point of recording with such a good microphone on the day, you know, with like a boom mic, if you're not going to keep it like that? And so we talked to, so I asked one of the producers of X-Men when I was, I was, I got to visit the set of X-Men 3 long ago in 2005.

10:05Yeah. Bobby Phil. In Vancouver. Yeah. And I asked this question and one of the producers, yeah, said like, well, no, you want to capture as good as you can on the set, the dialogue, right? And ADR is used, that's automated dialogue, automated dialogue replacement later on. If there's something that isn't quite working very well, or if the quality is off or the performance isn't quite there and you can actually enhance it. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot that is additionally recorded. True. I want to say that, you know, it depends on what kind of movie you're making because I was watching last night, Call Me By Your Name.

10:47And what struck, I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. What hit me the most was the sound design and the look. I mean, it was shot like on a, like a, like a film, a very, and it, and it was deliberately, the sound was deliberately very bad. It sounded just like it was one boom mic and everything, all the echoes were there, the distortion of, of, of like how people talk and everything. But it gave it such a feel of realism that was too strong. Like it hit me, like I remember it, like all the summers when I was a kid, you know, just like, just like, like you could hear the background just like unaltered of surrounding you. Yeah. It was pretty surreal. So, so, so, so, you know, depends what kind of movie you're making, what you want to accent, like here, that wouldn't make a lot of sense.

11:29You know, you got to hear the music and you got to hear the, you know, the talking, but other times you, you, you just want to be submerged into this, you know, unperfected. Yeah. That rawness. Yeah. I think genre films generally want, have that very artificial quality and as well, you're on Prometheus and Alien Covenant. I noticed now, yeah, most actors, the dialogue, you know, between the dialogue, you got the breaths and breathing and sort of, it's pushed down in the track, but it's not just, they don't disappear entirely. Cause that would be unnatural, but although they do that in anime all the time, just as a side note, but I'm noticing in Prometheus, David never breathes.

12:11All the other characters, they keep the breaths in. David never breathes. That's awesome. Oh, that's nice. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Give him a little robot feel. I just, I want to say. But in our case, Agent Smith, who's also a robot in a sense, he's breathing all the time. It's the opposite. And swearing and breathing and sweating. Swearing. Like a sailor. Yeah. With his dammit. He's such bad words. Yeah, I guess they're- Potty mouth. Just like, oof. They really are trying to- He never stops. His poo-poo mouth. Yeah, they're trying to convey that he's infected by humanity. I really, now you mentioned it, I really do think that's what they were going for. Yeah, because- I'm just- Sorry, everybody was talking at the same time.

12:52Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. Everyone talk now. Go, Courtney. I was going to say that the costumes, so I'm looking at this scene and it's particularly green because there's the exit sign and everything there. And so they used a green filter over the film. And something, so I work in theater mostly, so I don't have to worry about this, but it was covered a little bit that we just had to keep in mind that, I mean, every department on film especially needs to really talk to each other, especially the cinematographers and how it's going to be lit. So they, yeah, you were using a green filter. So all the costumes had to be made to work through a green filter.

13:35So everything is actually dyed with green. Even the black costumes are actually a slight green. That's what I wanted to ask you. So it is true. And their costumes are slightly- Even if it's white, there's a little bit of a green dye in it. Oh, really? Even in the white shirts, for instance? Or no? I'm wondering about Switcher's costume because that's white PVC. You can't add color to it. Oh. Unless they colored the back part because the back part of PVC is just cloth. And yeah, you could paint that and then the color might bleed through on the outside. That's the only way I think it could be done.

14:15Because I feel like, I'm not sure, but I feel like, you know, looking at these shots that the agent's coming out of the building, you know, obviously the whole picture is sort of green tinted, which is the Matrix look. But yeah, I mean, I guess the suits are- But we can all agree that the suits for the agents are green. Yeah. They're totally green. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Because there's people who are like- Yeah. Yeah. It's green. They did not have those on display at Warner Brothers Movie World, sadly. How do we have known? Then I could have said 100%. But I had a similar debate about- Color on film is an ongoing thing. Like the Prometheus armor, it looks all black.

14:56And the film is- I mean, when they're in the caves, it's so dark, you can't tell. But no, it's actually torp. All the sort of armored bits on the blue spacesuit. Oh, the blue spacesuit. Okay. Yeah, yeah. As opposed to those yellow ones they don't actually use. They're in the background. What- That's- I would love to be on a movie where the budget is so high that you can actually have costumes that are not worn by anyone. They're just in the background. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't that be nice? It's very excessive. Yeah. Also in Doctor Who, the 8th Doctor wears a green velvet coat. And for like 15 years, people were swearing so- You know, just swore on their mother's life.

15:38No, it's actually black. No, it's brown. But yeah. Wait, stop. You mean the 8th Doctor is, what's his name? Paul McGann. Oh, Paul McGann. Okay, okay. That's the 8th. Oh. My favorite and most obscure Doctor. And yeah, I did that costume once. And yeah, it was just never ending. But yeah, it's just Velvet. That's just how Velvet reacts on screen. I'd never use it on film. It'll be a nightmare. Yeah, it sounds, because like you said, it just soaks up. That's an interesting thing that you mentioned because, okay, maybe not Velvet, but there are certain like- He's wearing Velvet pants.

16:18Materials that, you know, that you think are black, but then when a camera kind of picks it up, it looks like brown. Especially if you use like classical lighting techniques, like not everything might work, you know, like you won't get that sort of same look. But I have to say the gray, the, as you call them, green suits, you got to give it to people, Phil. Like, come on, everything is tinted green. Gray is a color that looks, whatever color you put next to it, it'll look like it. You take gray and you put red next to it, you think it's brown. You put gray. That's the nature of gray. I wear gray a lot. Gray is my color. And so many times people are going, is that a green shirt you wear? No, it's clearly not. And then you go outside. Yeah, it's blue. Yeah.

16:59It's a tricky one. It's a chameleon of colors. Yeah. It's a trickster. So Agent Jones over here, he's going to, he said something like, you know, they traced, the trace was complete. That's what it is. Remember they said, begin a trace? What are they tracing? I don't know. They were just mentioning how to begin a trace. One of the agents is back home tracing some lines on a picture. They were using Morpheus's, I think when they caught Morpheus, they were like, begin a trace. Remember? Yeah, they're tracing the signal that they're captured. I don't think they can connect for a long time, you know, to the... Maybe they're tracing the nib. Yeah, that's what they did. They said it's complete. That's what they do. And they said deploy it. Well, the Sentinels are standing by. Sorry, sorry. Because they have to connect through an actual, like, connection.

17:40They can't just broadcast the signal, as they call it, wirelessly. They have to broadcast the signal through an actual plug. Or do they do it wirelessly? I don't know, Philip. No. I think it's all cables. Maybe they have to be close enough for Bluetooth to kick in. Yes. Well, they got enough information out of Morpheus. Yeah. Hmm. Because I'm not sure. They never showed them. I mean, they have futuristic technology. Yeah. Yeah. In the Matrix as well. They got futuristic technology in the rule. But in the Matrix, yeah, do they... I mean, they're using, yeah, phone lines and stuff to get out. So I guess they don't have Wi-Fi or anything. No. But I kind of like the old-timey feel of that. And I wanted to mention really quick, since we're on the topic, after that, we cut to the crew going down the steps in the subway, right?

18:21Yeah. They're going to the payphone. And I always like this in the Matrix, how they kind of devise this idea that you have to get to the nearest exit, which is capable of getting them out of the Matrix. Yeah. It's not like any payphone. Yeah. It's not like any payphone. You have to... Like, Tank has to go and do a search and sort of like, you know, see which are capable and which ones... And the cool thing is, I think that, you know, sometimes the nearest phone could be like, you know, 10 minutes away or one minute away, you know? And that sort of creates a bit of tension in the Matrix. Yeah, yeah. That's what it's all about. Because this is why, like, you know, our heroes are, you know, traversing the lands of Sydney to look for... To look for the right payphone. But that's what makes it interesting. Otherwise, it'd be super boring. Like, imagine they had cell phones.

19:02They'd be like, oh, just call. I think what the Matrix should have done was just like, fast forward 18 years where there's no payphones and they'll just screw it. I'm just like, oh no! Oh my goodness! How do we get out? No! I think one of those home in Sydney was one. There's still... No, no, no. Every home has... Yeah, they have modems and we can just get through that somehow. No, they have to break into grandmothers. Yes. Grandmothers who still own payphones. Oh, I can't wait for the Matrix reboot set in 2020. I love it. But this scene especially, it has that really grungy old world look. And I think it actually makes it seem more timeless.

19:46It's not dated. I think, as I said in the previous episode, that when I was watching it in my mid-teens, it was in that awkward middle period of history where it's not a new movie, but it's not an old movie, it's sort of in this weird nebulous zone. And then, yeah, watching it now, there is a bit of a nostalgia. There is a bit of distance, I guess. Yeah, and I mean, like what I said earlier in the podcast, not these episodes, but in general, is that I think the reason why they maybe even went for some of the, you know, 1950s vibes when it comes to like the repair shops and, you know, things like that, using payphones, that just adds to what you're saying, the timelessness.

20:27It's, you know, it's more, it makes it more universal in a sense that you're not really pinpointing it to a specific period. You're just like, oh yeah, like everyone knows like, you know, a 50s look and stuff like that. So give us a little bit more. Yeah, I think that's the same thing with Blade Runner. That's part of the appeal of that movie is that it's this weird combination of 1920s architecture and then this future Neo-Tokyo sort of thing. Yeah. And you don't question and go like, oh, that's from this. You're just like, oh, it's an interesting world. And that's it. Yeah. Anyway. Going back to the agents and again, understated costumes that work really well is the cut of

21:08their suits is so stock standard. Like it is the most standard suit you could possibly imagine. Really? Really? Because, see, the cut of a man's suit goes back and forth over the decades fairly consistently. 2000s were so bad. They were so big. Oh my. The suits were humongous. Look at the NBA roster in like year 2003. And look at those suits. You will die laughing because you forgot. Okay. Those things look like tanks on them. I'll send you a link. You keep talking. I'm looking. I'd love to. Yeah. In the, what I love about suits is that the evolution is fairly consistent over time.

21:54Women's fashions, it's all over the place. But with men, you can, you can start from about the 1700s to today. And a lot of the features on a jacket came from the ancestors. It's almost an evolution. Like probably wonder, there's a little buttonhole on a lapel. Most jackets will have a button, a buttonhole there, which seems vestigial. And what that used to be is, yeah, a jacket used to button all the way up, but you don't do that anymore. Although there was some designer back in the 60s or 80s, he always got his tailors to actually put a button on the other side so he could button off his suit jacket.

22:35So 1920s, very skinny suits. And then around World War II, it's a very hyper-masculine. So you go from 1920s, a little bit androgynous. Then there's a very hyper-masculine silhouette, which continues right up until the end of the 50s. You know, that sort of, yeah, very big shoulders, looser cut. It's all about emphasizing the male silhouette. 60s comes along and suddenly you've got these mods and hippies. You've got the very, again, kind of like the 1920s suits, very skinny. Well, because it wasn't 60s, the skinny time?

23:17Yeah. So it seems that whenever culture or Western culture is in a time of affluence and recreation and fun, you tend to have the skinnier, trendier suits. However, the 1980s is the opposite, where it is a fun time of excess, but massive suits for some reason. Shoulder pads. Oh, I reviewed Rain Man on the first episode of Saint Elsewhere. And there's a scene where they have a makeover and they're coming down the escalator and they're in their tailored suits, but it's just like, my God, they're so big. You could fit two legs in one of those trouser legs. And then, yeah, the 90s sort of had a bit of that 80s hangover.

24:03Narrow were cut, but still, oh my God, I watched X-Files recently. Oh, no. Everyone's wearing gigantic trench coats. Like, the sleeves are so big. Why? So the Matrix actually plays it fairly safe. Between the 80s and the early 2000s, it was all very loose, horrible suits. But here, it's just stock standard. It's the Goldilocks zone. It's very nice. You notice that the suit did not age at all. It is just a suit. And that was a clever thinking of on their part, not to over, you know, stylize those. I mean, if it was in the 70s, imagine just like bell-bottom suits.

24:43Oh, my God. Agent Smith in the 70s. Sideburns, yes. No, no, I don't want the images in my head. The agents in the 60s are good. The thing is, with costume design, we're always taught, if you're making a contemporary film, you don't want to go with the latest trends. Unless that's sort of the point of that particular character or whatever. If most of the time you want to have fairly timeless outfits. That especially, I love the costume in Alien for that exact reason. Like, everyone on the Nostromo, you could put that in a modern movie. That looks fine. They just based that on the British ambulance driver uniforms.

25:26So, yeah, functional, simple. That's sweet. They're wearing like Converse shoes. They went with something and it works. Yeah, Converse shoes too, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love those white Converse shoes. Not practical when you're dealing with Xenomorphs, but oh well. No. They weren't expecting to. Yes. Yeah. It's also interesting when you're doing a big movie that, you know, sometimes the thing is that, you know, the production takes a year or something like that. So, some things might change. So, good rule of thumb. Don't, you know, to be contemporary and don't use too contemporary memes or something like that from the internet. Because by the time your movie comes out. That's the worst. That might be considered to be like, oh. Like in Black Panther where a character says, what are those? Yeah, you're like, oh, okay. Yeah, watch out for those. Wow, blast from the past.

26:07Dank memes. Yeah, I think it's always wise to just stick to things that are conventional unless you. But when you're making a period film, that's when you're told to really amp it up. The weird thing is, though, in X-Men First Class, it's not really. It's very underplayed. You forget it's set in the 60s. I don't know what they were thinking with that. I guess they were even concentrating. What do you think about that? I don't know. Because I feel like if you're setting a movie in a certain time period and the time period isn't necessarily important to the story, I feel like it's great that you don't feel like you're in the 60s or wherever the time has taken place. That's my opinion.

26:48Yeah, I still don't know how I feel. Because I've seen that movie many times. I love it. But, yeah, I go, I don't know. It's somewhere in the middle. They're not playing it all, but it's definitely a 60s aesthetic. So, yeah, it works. I like it. Maybe it's just me wanting as much 60s as possible. It's one of my favorite eras. That's probably true, you know? That might be a reason. Yeah. But the fetish gear and stuff that's in the Matrix, you know, I remember, yeah, so in my teens, you know, I had a lot of goth friends and we would hang out at all those sort of alternative stores and stuff. And just going, this subculture doesn't really change that much.

27:30So that would have been around, I don't know, like 20. I wanted to ask you a question. Thank you so much for reminding me. Did you want to continue or are you done with that? I was just saying that it's interesting that subcultures don't tend to evolve with the times. It's just, this is cyberpunk. This is always cyberpunk. Well, here's what I was wondering with the Matrix. I was always curious as to the question of, you know, where did this idea come from to have the main characters wear mostly black? Is that something that's specific to the time period or is that subculture specific or is that just an idea from the filmmakers or what's your take on that sort of like black and leather and stuff like that? Yeah.

28:11I really wanted to find an art. So, you know, if there was a specific reason why everything had to be black and why the sunglasses, but no, not really. It was just the Wachowskis had this vision in mind. And my theory is that because they did all those comic book style storyboards all in black and white, and it is this sort of superhero style thing. I think maybe they just sort of stuck with black. Just kind of rubbed off on them. Yeah. That makes sense. So just an aesthetic sort of like that's sort of what they feel. Yeah. It would be good for them. And they are very much superhero costumes. Once everyone starts adorning those, yeah, the PVC and all of that, you go, yeah, this is the superhero moment.

28:57Because you've, yeah, most of the time when you're costuming, it has to be telling a story in a practical term. Like, oh, this character is probably not that fast with their appearance. So they're just wearing, you know, like a jumper and track pants or whatever. But then Trinity shows up and you're like, what practical purpose could any of the, you're wearing sunglasses at night. You've got the PVC. See, the only thing is maybe, and I'm glad they actually didn't try and be literal and try and justify it. But like, maybe if they put in like a motorcycle outfit, you're almost, she's, yeah, that she's like the motorcycle cyclist character. So she wears all the motorcycle gear. No, no, it's just shiny. Yeah, it's cool. I like that.

29:38They're cool. I think like, yeah, in the sort of around 1995, 96, when most of this was written and sort of designed, I think, you know, which I was, because we're very, you know, kind of, they dug like subculture and like all these scenes and everything. And, you know, like right now, like if someone was making, they would be maybe interested in whatever, you know, normcore scene or whatever is happening in the underground that's kind of hidden up. I think that's sort of, I think like. I'm lost. I have no idea. Me too. I don't know either. Look, I have someone to talk to. I understand. It's this weird subculture where you dress as generically as possible for some reason. Well, I think the idea is it's a, it's an anti-fashion.

30:20What it was at the beginning was anti-fashion because like around 2009, 2010, very colorful, very like everything's vintage. Everything's super detailed. Everything's crazy. Like that hipster sort of scene was breaking out. A lot of people who grew up in that were kind of sick of it. So they wanted to do something opposite. And they kind of looked for inspiration. People like Steve Jobs were like, it's very utilitarian. Like you buy your gap jeans. You buy like, like that's when, you know, what are they called? Those, the shoes, the new balance became popular again. Yeah. Because, because, because, because, because, yeah. No, crocs are evil. Crocs are evil. But normal call. Yeah. Oh my God. And then just like a t-shirt. And it was just like an anti-fashion. But a lot of fashion bloggers picked it up because it looked cool.

31:03And then became actually, actually ironic. It became a fashion, you know, it became, it became something like. You kind of dress. Yeah. It's kind of like dressing like your mom when she's on vacation in a foreign country. It's like mom jeans. And then you have like simple sweatshirt. And then you have like the simplest shoes. Like it was like a statement, but. Oh, bum bag. That's an Australian term that we don't have. Bum bag, which is a fanny pack. Oh. Bum bag. But see, fanny, fanny means you vag. So. Right. I don't even know where that came from, the American term. It's. Yeah.

31:43It's called like a waist pack or something. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, literally here, it's called like a. I just want to say in Serbia, it's called just a gay purse. For some reason, they just call it that. They tend to wear them. And so the norm core kids will wear them around the waist, but the street kids will wear them slung over their shoulder. Oh, street kids are so cool. Yeah. But my brother is a street kid all into that. Like what's that label? Supreme. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm looking at some photos of norm core. And I don't know. Like I can't really tell. What? Well, it's great. Norm core.

32:23You just ask norm core people to be extras in your film and it'll be the most generic set of bystanders you can get. Yeah. Right? Because some of those norm core looks actually quite fashionable. I don't really. It's a process. That's why. Okay. No. I mean, it's all being appropriated. It came from a statement, became fashion. And now it's just part of normal fashion. Everyone. You can go to Zara and get norm core clothes. You know, it doesn't matter. I see. I see. It's part of the system. Part of the matrix. You can just dress any way you want. I have to say that I like contemporary fashion. What I like right now is that there's no style of pants that you have to wear. Like, especially for ladies, like my wife, she can go to a store right now and she can

33:03get like mom jeans, boyfriend jeans, tight jeans, skinny jeans, high-waisted jeans, bell-bottom. It doesn't matter. There's no specific cut that's popular right now. You can just get any sort of pants you want and it doesn't matter. It's like, eh. Whichever is fine. Which we live in. Yes. Yeah. I love the drop crotch joggers, sort of cargo pants. Just that's my ideal thing. It's comfortable. Got pockets. I don't have to take up the hem because it's elasticated. It's great. Awesome. Gotta have your pockets. Yeah. Where were we? We were. We were. Okay. This is a fashion podcast now. Well, of course it is. We got you on. Yeah. Clearly. I talk about fashion so much in Prometheus by minute.

33:47It's not relevant to anything, but. It's good. It gives it a huge edge. Well, look, it's quite relevant here. So we're very happy to have you. Exactly. Exactly. As I said before. Jake was asking, why are they dressed like that? And I was saying that it was fashion. Like you had like sort of like the raver scene and it was very sort of futuristic look. That everything was very shiny. Everything was, you know, you got like very PVC kind of, that kind of look was hip. So by the time the movie was released, I don't think it was that popular. Everything started to become more grayish and more like toned down. That kind of like baggy clothes and that kind of fashion. But I think it was kind of like the last remnants of that sort of whatever that ravers, hackers, that kind of thing, you know, going on.

34:28Yeah. What other sci-fi movies came out? That's like Minority Report, I guess. Dark City. Oh, my God. Dark City. Yeah. Yeah. Hackers. Yes. Hackers. Wow. That did not age well. It's almost Matrix-like in its aesthetic, but not. It just, it missed the mark so hard. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We watched it. Looking at Trinity's, uh, Trinity's tank top here. I love that cut because I think it's, it's quite a masculine silhouette. Like it makes her shoulders broader. And I like that because she also wears this spaghetti strap one, which always takes me back to the 90s.

35:10So, what? Not a fan. Oh, yeah. That's right. That's the spaghetti strap one. I think is, uh, earlier. I think it's in the sequences, uh, during when they're in the walls and stuff. Isn't that right? When they're in the walls and then when, uh, Cypher is killing everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's on the phone with him. But that's interesting. You mentioned it. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, that's spaghetti straps, I think. For me, that was really dated. And yet this particular tank top, like that is just, it makes sense to the character. And it also just feels timeless. Totally. She's got gloves too. It's awesome. Oh, that's right. I love the gloves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's so cool. She's, she's cool. She's awesome. She's probably one of the first female characters I've really noticed.

35:53Because before that, you know, you're growing up watching Disney movies. Like, yeah, yeah. Princesses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's great. I think, I think we, we talked about this actually on the podcast before. And we noticed that Trinity actually had a little bit more, I mean, obviously she has a, she has an important role, of course, in the film. But we noticed that they actually wrote her in even more in the earlier drafts. In the earlier drafts of the script. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm curious about that. More, like she actually, she actually led. She actually, no, yeah. This whole thing, rescuing Morpheus was her idea in the old script. Yeah. So, so it was actually her saying like, we're going to do this. And Neo was the one who's like, oh, okay. And then Neo was like, I'm going to help you. Sorry. Yeah, that's right. And in the final movie, it's Neo saying, I got to go.

36:35And then Trinity saying, oh, no. So we felt like that was interesting how, you know, that could have worked well. I think, I think they missed out. Yeah. Watching it again, I'm like, oh, I, you know, she is such a hard ass character. And like, honestly, if I met Carrie Ann Moss, she might be a really lovely person, but she's just so intimidating as Trinity that I'd be a bit scared. It doesn't help that everything she's been so far afterwards, she's just an evil woman. That's what she is. Like every, every movie that I watch after, Jessica Jones. Yeah. Yes. She's so evil and so like commanding. I don't know. But if you watch interviews with her, she's like a very lovely person. Yeah. But it just fits. So like anything she's been, she's like, oh, scary woman.

37:16I think the same thing with someone like Vincent D'Onofrio. Like they're always these really intense characters. So meeting in person, I'm like, oh, don't kill me, please. Oh, yeah. Where was I going with? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Watching it now and definitely being more sensitive to representation of minorities and just going, wow, for a female character, she, she's got a really great attitude and stuff. But in terms of her actual role in the plot, I feel like she's, she, she's just there to be the love interest, which is a bit disappointing. Whereas someone like Princess Leia, you think she's the damsel in distress. She's a mouthy bitch and I love her for it.

37:57And she's Luke's sister. So she can't even possibly be the love interest. Yeah. That's a good point. Whereas it's, yeah, it's Trinity's destiny to be the love interest. And I'm just like, for real? Come on. Yeah. That's kind of her only sort, not only, but sort of her main, I guess, you know, arc or whatever is like that. Yeah. Like if you had to list all the characters as their primary roles, like Morpheus, the mentor, Obi-Wan type to Neo, Trinity, love interest to Neo. That's it. I mean, that's the entire prophecy she gets through the portal. Imagine that. You're like, you're going to find out your future. Oh my God. You'll be, you'll fall in love. Third minute. You'll fall in love with the one.

38:38It's like, that's it. It's not even about me. It's about the one. Tell me about my future. I don't care about the one. Doesn't pass the Bechdel test. That's true. Okay. So. So now let's talk about this, this effect. No, we're going down the subway. Oh, we're in the subway. That subway is a nice subway and it's, it's a set. They built this. Just wanted to give you some trivia. Yeah. And. Yeah. I was going to say, I don't think this is a real train station in Sydney. Unfortunately not. Because they don't look like that at all. This is like very New York. No. Yeah. It's called a, it's, it's on Balboa street. I think that's the sign, not Balboa, just Balboa. That's another Chicago thing. Balboa Baggins.

39:19And it was, so this was built in a disused wheat storage facility or different facilities. And it was used as wheat storage in the 1920s and the real track was already there. So in the interior had a real track. Yep. Like that, those train tracks there. And they filmed it in White Bay in New South Wales. Huh. There you go. That's cool. I don't know why, but mentioning every time someone mentions wheat, the first thing I think of is there was a story a few years ago where this kid drowned in a wheat silo. So fucked up. Oh, that's bad. Oof. Oof. Wouldn't want to be. Yeah, because it's like sinking, what do you call like a quicksand. Yeah. Oh no.

40:00So it creates a suction effect. So the grains sort of pile it on top of you and you can't pull someone out. Yeah. Because you are so wedged in that. That is horrible. Yeah. Anyway. Kids get away from wheelbarrows. Moving on. Stay away from those at all. Yeah. Because they're making, you see, this is a wheat, this used to be a wheat facility where they made tasty wheat. Very tasty. Mmm. Ah, you see what I did? How do you know what a tasty wheat tastes like? Yeah. Yeah. Let's get to the... Can we talk about the effects? Yes. Okay, go. Come on. Effects. Yes. Yes. So this is the first time we get to see how people leave the Matrix. Because it was always cutaways before.

40:40Always the classic cut, but not this time. We wanted the cutaways for the Agent Smiths, and we got the cutaways for this stuff. So what do you guys think about the effect? It's a good effect, better than the Agent ones. That's what I say. Yes. Yeah. I agree. What do you think? Especially with the technology of the time, and yeah, like we were talking about Blade 2's effects, and when that came afterwards, you know, this plays it safe. It's a fairly simple transitional effect. I like the kind of vanature going on. I don't know what that's supposed to symbolize. I actually love more than the vanature. I like the sort of bubbling effect, where it sort of like expands and sort of retracts.

41:22Sean Wayne. I feel almost like the entire effect could have been even more subtle like that, you know, with less of the flashy white stuff. It could have been more like a Transparency Predator kind of look, like just like, whoa, whoa. Right, right. But, you know, it's still... Matrix reboot. Matrix reboot. That's right. Yeah. That's the important part. Fixing the transitions. Yes. But it looked, you know, at first glance, it looks very simple, but when you think about it, there's a, you know, they could have gone just one effect, but there's, you know, at least four of them. You know, there's the vein thing, then there's like the disappearance, and there's like the fade. The fade, and then there's like the shockwave. So it's interesting that I think they made it more realistic, like... Yeah, notice how the light is actually affecting in the phone booth. I'm very happy about that.

42:03They actually... They should have just won... I was trying to see if that happened or not. It's hard for me to see it going frame. I need a gif of this. No, no, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it is true that there is a little bit of lighting, refractions and reflections in the phone booth, at least. Oh, guys. I love how this film is mostly filmed in wide shots. You know, as a costume person, it's so frustrating when, you know, you put all this effort into something, and then it only gets filmed from the waist up, if that. Yeah. Yeah. And if, as a cosplayer, you know, someone goes, oh, I want you to make this costume for me. It's like, cool, no problem. I'll watch the movie and go, you only see the bottom half of this costume for one scene,

42:45and it's from a mile away. Yeah. Whereas the Matrix, like, it really, and I'm wondering if that actually had an effect on the cultural impact of the costumes. Not only were they very unusual, but people got a real good shot of it. Sort of like Darth Vader's costume. When he first walks onto the ship, background's all white, you get a full body shot of him for a good few seconds. Yeah. It sticks in people's minds, because they get a good head-to-toe look. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I can agree with you there, because people who know me when I talk about shots is that I love the wide shots, and I like seeing wider angles, and, you know, like, just because

43:27you get a better view of everything, and the screen is huge. And what you said here is very valid, because I know there's a bunch of movies that are great, and they're shot very poorly, and I have no idea how the costumes even look like. And so, yeah, seeing things is a valuable thing. Yeah. I don't know where I'm going with this. Sorry. I'll just be off now. Well, that, we shouldn't, I mean, unless that's a deliberate choice by the director, but, you know, we want to feel immersed in this world, and the way you do that is allowing us to actually see what the hell is going on. Yeah. You know, unless you're doing like a shaky cam sort of, there's a word for that, a shaky

44:08cam effect. Yeah. Well, I call it the shaky cam. There's a proper name. But yeah, the shaky cam films, which were popular actually around this time, where you don't really get a good shot of things. But they tend to be set in the real world, so it's not as important. But genre movies, you really do want to play up the role of the costumes, because that's how the audience knows about this world. You know, we all wear clothes. And so seeing how these alien characters or space-faring humans dress really helps to inform the story. Oh, and that tangents nicely into, or transitions nicely, into a little bit of trivia that Kim

44:48Barrett was actually the costume designer for Titan AE, which is an animated film. Really? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Apparently, I know, I remember ages ago watching the special features for Shrek that they had makeup artists doing, you know, actually designing the makeup for the characters. So yeah, apparently every once in a while, animated films get actual costume and makeup artists to come in and redesign it, I guess. Yeah. Wow. Cool. That's very interesting. That would be fun. Yeah, right. Yeah, I would agree with that. You don't have to deal with fittings or sourcing fabric. You just go, here's this crazy elaborate costume.

45:28Go ahead, draw it, have fun. Right. Yeah, right. So, look at this. Morpheus is gone. Thankfully, he's safely taken out of the Matrix. That's a good thing. We got that effect. I remember many people, when I was watching it with them back in the early 2000s, they're like, wow, that's so cool. Look at that. You can see the transition going on. And even the hobo here feels the same way. He feels it's a good effect. Every time the phone drops, though, I kind of flinch. Like, oh, it's going to get smashed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of the phone. It's like when characters leave the fridge open in a movie, and then if they don't go back to the house, the fridge is open, they run out of the house.

46:09For the rest of the movie, I guarantee I'm like, they left that fridge open. That fridge is fucking open. Oh, my God. The fridge. The milk is going to go off. For me, the phone hanging is sort of like a, you know, Roadrunner effect. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Off the edge of the cliff. By the way, I noticed something about the phone, which is that I never noticed it before. I'll never unsee it. It's an old-ass phone. I've never seen one of those before in my life. Really? Really? No way. Other than those hipster, like the accessories, like you can have a phone accessory, which are like an old handheld. So you've never seen like a payphone like this?

46:50No, I've never really been up close to one. That's really interesting. I had my first mobile phone when I was 11. Yeah. I used to play Snake on it. Oh, yeah. Snake was the best. I liked Snake. Snake 1, I think Snake 1 was good. Snake 2 was hard. Where, you know, you can go through the walls. Anyway, what I wanted to say really quick is that the phone, when Morpheus, when the transition finishes, you can clearly see it's a different shot of the phone. Wait, what? Yep. Watch. See, look at the phone. He's holding it. And now watch this. New phone. Oh, Jacob, thanks. Thanks for ruining this for me. So if you go frame by frame, you can see the angle completely changes to the phone because they're fading into a different shot.

47:31Yeah. I wondered how they filmed this. I did not notice that at all. Yeah. The phone switches through. It's so subtle. Like, you don't even notice. Not subtle anymore. It's such a beautiful, but now you know. Now everyone knows. Thanks for ruining it. Oh, wow. Okay. That's fun. Yeah. Yeah. In a recent minute of Prometheus by Minute, I noticed a similar thing where the editors are trying to sort of cut around something that doesn't... Well, I mean, if you're watching it like a normal person and not maniacs like us, it's fine. But like, there's a character, Milburn, who is... He's standing at this sort of... Sort of the breakfast bar thing. He's waiting in line to get food for himself.

48:12And then it cuts back to him. And he's still in the same spot. But two other characters are pushed in front of him. But I don't think that... Well, it looks like they've pushed in front of him. But I don't think that's supposed to be the case. They just edited two moments together. Milburn's just standing there waiting for his food. It'll never come. Oh, poor Milburn. Yeah. And on that... He'll be dead soon. It's fine. Oh, yeah. It's fine. Yeah. And with that, I think we have concluded our observations on Minute 112. That is correct. That is absolutely correct. The one thing I will say, though, is... So, the homeless character, you know, I'm always fascinated by characters who... Or actors who play a significant role.

48:52But it's a really tiny moment. So, they get, you know, a full close-up. Or they get a bit of dialogue. But that's it. And I always go, I wonder what that was like getting cast for that. Or what that experience was like. Minimal effort. You're just there for like a day or two. And then you get to see your wonderful close-up in the end. And it's like, it's immortalized. And it's everywhere. It's all the homeless fault. If he wasn't there, he could have got away. I know someone knows the Spoon Kid. But I couldn't for the life of me track them down. Oh, that would be fun. I know. If we could find him. Yeah. I think... What's his name? Just look up Spoon Kid on Facebook. Yeah. Yeah. His name is Rowan Witt. And I think... He has an Instagram, at least.

49:33I know that. And he was one of the... I think he's doing... Just of Ben Spoons. Yeah. No, actually, he's doing the Australian version of Book of Mormon. He's one of the principals there. That's interesting. Oh, yeah. I really want to see that. Yeah. There you go. Then you can meet Rowan Witt. There's your chance. You can be like, there is no Spoon. Yeah. Yeah. Throw a Spoon Kid. How is it going to be? I bet you this. Okay. So, let's just do this since we're, you know. Since the whole week, Courtney, if you could just repeat some of the places online. Oh, yes. You can find me on TravianDesigns.com, T-R-A-V-I-A-N, or Prometheus Spy Minute on Facebook.

50:16Beautiful. I can't spell that well. Yeah. I've still left 112 episodes, still can't even say. We're almost done. The week's almost over. You know, Thursday's coming in. Yeah, Travian was... Sorry. No, no, no. It's boring. My thing's boring. Yeah. Yeah, I was just going to say Travian. Well, I especially have to spell it because it's a made-up word. It's a character of mine. And I've got two novels going on right now. And in the first one I was writing, it's a sort of Victorian gothic horror. And the main character is Dr. Cordelia Travian. So, yeah. Ah. You almost done? Yeah. Oh, good. No, no. I meant, like, with the novels. Oh, with the... It's like... Can we wrap up?

50:57Okay. No. Shut the fuck up, Courtney. Jeez. Get out. That's amazing. Okay, fine. Gee. So, that one, I think the first draft is pretty much done. I've got the skeleton. I've got all the characters. Well, the skeleton of the story. There are skeletons in the story. And, yeah, it's basically just... I like the skeletons. Yes. Spoopy skeletons. So, yeah, my particular method is I'll write... Oh, yeah, sort of do these little samples of scenes. You know, sort of a texture sample of what I want. And then I'll do the skeleton of, okay, this is how the plot should be structured. And then I go in and do my second draft.

51:39So, I'm almost up to that. Awesome. Awesome, dude. And, yeah, that's it. That's it. Bye-bye. Yeah. Yeah. You