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00:00Okay, hello again. How many of you have seen Saturday Night? How many of you know tonight
00:16is Saturday Night? Everybody knows this. Anyway, what a great movie Saturday Night is. Of course,
00:22it's the very first episode of the show. It's the 90 minutes leading up to that so that
00:29the film ends with, live, it's Saturday Night. What a story. An origin story, a great comedy,
00:36and it really details all of these incredible things that happened to get this show on the
00:42air. A revolutionary show as it was at the time for NBC. And Jason Reitman is the writer,
00:50director, and producer who co-wrote it with Gil Kennan. And it's really a fun ride to
00:57be sure, but really an eye-opening one. I didn't know a lot about this. And it is scored
01:04by the multiple Grammy and Oscar winning composer, John Batiste, who not only does this score
01:15and in a very unusual way, one of the most unusual ways I've ever heard a movie scored
01:21and that we're gonna be talking about that with him and Jason, but also plays Billy Preston
01:27who was the first musical guest on Saturday Night Live. So he has a role in it as well.
01:33Before I bring them out, I want to show a clip from Saturday Night. It's actually a
01:37featurette that talks about the musical aspects of this. So let's roll that.
01:43Yeah, that's two.
01:47We're doing something that's not the typical process. Every day we'd wrap around five or
01:52six p.m. and then we'd start recording and record an entire score live on set in real
01:58time. That idea is that he had pre-worked out. The more he would point at one instrument
02:04and then point at another instrument, tell him what to do, hit this note, play this rhythm.
02:08Okay, now you stop coming here. And I watched him create in real time. I could show him
02:16a scene and go, I know what to do with that.
02:23It's Saturday Night Live and we're scoring live. The music has a real goal of not only
02:33being theme oriented, but representing the building of this show that's on the edge of
02:39falling apart at every second, just before it goes on the air. I wanted to almost have
02:44a motley crew of instruments and styles and genres. He's touched by God in a way that
02:51is really hard to explain.
02:59Please welcome writer, director, producer, Jason Reitman, and composer and actor, John
03:05Batiste.
03:09All right. Wow. That's a really interesting kind of process. So many of the ways you made
03:23this movie, Jason, are different and lively because you're trying to keep the energy
03:29of what probably happened on those 90 minutes leading up to it. And this movie demonstrates
03:34that in all its manic energy and everything else that was going on, including the way
03:39the music was done.
03:40Yeah. I mean, of all, and this was easily the most joyful film I've ever made, hardest
03:45film I've ever made, but also the most joyful. And what we were trying to do in every aspect
03:50is capture what it's like at SNL, where they start on a Tuesday with nothing and by Saturday
03:55they have a finished show. What does creativity feel like in real time? And we're balancing
04:00that with having choreographed the entire film months before we started shooting.
04:06Which is amazing. And just to keep that up with a cast of over 80 speaking roles that
04:13you had in this, which is enormous.
04:15Yeah. And they almost work every single day. There was days where Steve Morrow, our production
04:21sound mixer, had 58 mics going simultaneously. Because it's not about the foreground. Yeah.
04:28It's not about just the dialogue that's happening in front of the camera. It's creating a soundscape
04:33so you feel like you're always really there. And it's easy to talk about this like it's
04:39a circus trick, but really what I think what Gil Ken and my writing partner and I were
04:43most proud of is that we approached this with thinking, there's 30 main characters
04:49in this film and we all know the end. Titanic goes down and SNL goes on the air. And so
04:58our goal was you're going to meet 30 main characters over the course of this film and
05:02you're slowly going to get to know all of them. And if you care about them in the moments
05:07before they go live and you feel the tension and you're actually worried about whether
05:11this is going to happen or not, then we knew we would have succeeded. This is not just
05:14a comedy and it's a very funny one, but it's a suspense thriller. Because of the way you've
05:20done this with the countdown clock, we're following it along supposedly in real time.
05:25I even heard you back numbered the pages of the script. Did you? We numbered the pages
05:31backwards. So when you opened up our screenplay for this movie, the first page was page 100
05:37and the second page was 99 and then 98 and 97. And we got a lot of calls being like,
05:42I think the script, the PDF is wrong. And it's like, no, no, it's a bit, it's just going,
05:46it's fun. And then it's cool though, because in the last 10 pages, you're like, oh my God,
05:51it's happening. You just knew. And we knew that was what was going to make this work
05:55is if you felt the clock. And apparently we did because when we screened the movie for
06:02the first time, people, one of the notes we got was, well, there's a clock in the room
06:08and it says 1051, but we all know it's 1053. And people were so hyper aware of what time
06:14it was that the only visual effect, like the only CG in the movie is we had to move the
06:20minute hand on the clock in the scenes, like by minutes at a time sometimes, because people
06:24were like, sorry, it's not 1101, it's 1102. They just said it.
06:29That's amazing. Also, you have all these incredible, if you haven't seen this movie,
06:34you have to see it because all this incredible stuff that went on, it didn't all happen in
06:38those 90 minutes. You did condense some of it to get it all in, in the movie. But did
06:45you have the full cooperation of Lorne Michaels and Saturday and NBC and everybody to do this
06:51movie?
06:52Yeah. The first person I ever spoke to was Lorne and we pitched him the idea. And I think
06:55the moment he realized that, okay, we're not doing a biopic about Saturday Night Live.
07:00We're talking about what it feels like in the 90 minutes leading to go live and particularly
07:04what it was like that first time. And what was it like for all these characters? And
07:09he loved the idea. He gave us his blessing. And at that point, Gil and I interviewed every
07:14living person that was in the building on October 11th, 1975. And as you might imagine,
07:21none of their stories added up. And so we're weaving together myths and legend and truth
07:28just to capture again what it feels like. It's supposed to be a real time movie about
07:33being dropped into the building so that you can feel like you're part of the cast and
07:38crew all the way up to the last second.
07:40And speaking of the cast and crew, I've got a member of the cast and the crew sitting
07:44next to you, Mr. John Batiste, who plays Billy Preston, the first musical guest ever
07:55on Saturday Night Live. That had to be fun to do Billy Preston. And you're really fun
08:00doing that in the movie.
08:01Yeah. Billy stands up and plays the clavinet, which I totally, totally would never do. The
08:08clavinet is so low and he's dancing and he's got his hair and it's going and it's happening
08:13and he's singing. And we were shooting that live and I was like, man, this is treacherous.
08:20But it was really beautiful. I enjoyed it. I've studied Billy Preston just because, you
08:24know, that's a lineage of music I really care about. And you always embody musicians when
08:29you study them. It's like if you study someone, you start to look at the videos and the interviews
08:34and watch when they perform. And then you start to try to see, well, maybe I could sound
08:38like that if I do it a little. So I had already kind of had...
08:43Does changing your physicality make you sound like the artist you're trying to emulate?
08:48Definitely. You'll never sound like it, but you sound closer to what they're doing. You
08:53look at people's hand position on the instrument. Billy Preston has a certain position. He has
08:59a certain way he holds his head when he sings. Same with anyone who has a distinct sound,
09:05like the Loneliest Monk or anybody who plays the piano, especially. Because this is really,
09:09you know, it's a block of wood and metal and hammers. How does it sound different in everybody's
09:15hands? So, yeah, it's beautiful. It's amazing. And this was, as you said in that little featurette,
09:22I don't know of many movies where I've heard this done, where you as the composer are actually
09:27composing playing live during the making of the movie, which sounds terribly complicated
09:33to me. Was it? It's fun. We had the conversation, the first conversation we had, and then many
09:43conversations after that. It became very clear to me, in some way, shape or form, it was
09:50not going to be a traditional score. It was the anti-score. The first decision that we
09:55made actually was that we would throw away the orchestra. It would not be an orchestral
10:02score. And we started to talk about what the music represents, and it really is the
10:08villain in the film. The music is an allegory for the clock, and the clock is the pressure
10:13of time. And the pressure of time is the failure of success. And that's the feeling that Jason
10:19mentioned at first. Don't ever make it feel like it's resolved. We know how it's going
10:25to end. We know that there's great success. It shouldn't ever feel like there's a moment
10:31of resolution, even by the end. And figuring out how to do that is like drunken master
10:37style. It's like, how do you make something that's not with the orchestra, that's broken,
10:44but fits and is cohesive over the course of a film? And sometimes it's sound design, sometimes
10:52it's sound effects, sometimes it's score, sometimes it's meant to crash into the dialogue
10:58and into the scene as a character. So it really is the score conceptualizing it was
11:05the first part of the battle. Then once we conceptualized it, the reality of it came
11:10to me as like, oh, if we capture it in the room where everything is happening, in the
11:17room where it happened, and if we get the energy of the space and the pressure of time
11:26on the musicians who did an incredible job, because we came back after dinner, I'd get
11:30out of the Billy Preston wig, and everybody would come back, and Jason and I would look.
11:35Everybody stayed, too. The entire cast and crew every night would stay, because they
11:38knew they were about to get a free concert.
11:41It was like the second shift. And we'd come back after dinner, and we'd be on the set,
11:51and the film is not cut. We'd have a discussion, we'd watch a few clips that the incredible
11:57editing team put together, and I would just let the moment, it had some sort of transmission
12:04that would happen, and then I would go immediately to the band. And I'm composing, dictating
12:10it to them, they're learning it in five minutes or less, and then we're recording it with
12:14no separation.
12:15But you're also, sorry I have to jump in, he's also calling out notes, not writing them
12:21down, not playing on the piano for a second, he's just like, you. A flat to a B, then to
12:27a G, back to the A flat, right? And then with the shaker, I want you to grab that and...
12:34And you're just mouthing it out, and to the outside you're like, this makes no sense.
12:39And then it all starts to play, and your heart starts going, and I've just never seen
12:45anything like this.
12:47It's...
12:48It really is, yeah.
12:54I will admit that without the trust of someone like you, Jason, and the team, to believe
13:01that oh, this will work without the film being cut, to come back into the edit room and for
13:08it to work, I didn't know 100% that all of the stuff that we recorded on the set would
13:13end up in the film, which it did.
13:15So to me, that's the new way. Immerse yourself in the process, and capture the energy of
13:24this thing while it's happening, and then that way the music is informing the edit,
13:29it's informing...
13:30Driving the edit.
13:31It...
13:32It becomes the heartbeat of the film.
13:33I can't...
13:34I don't even...
13:35I want to do some version of this going forward with any of the projects that we work on.
13:39It would be amazing.
13:40He said we.
13:41Yeah.
13:42We've got it on tape.
13:43You've got it on...
13:44Okay.
13:45That's all I wanted to make sure.
13:46We have got that commitment.
13:47It was...
13:48Is that your little instrument that you play over there that she's got, or...
13:51Oh, man.
13:52Do you have that?
13:53Yeah.
13:54Over there.
13:55Can we...
13:56Can we get that up here?
13:57A little bit.
13:58Wow.
13:59I know.
14:00People turn around.
14:01I asked him before.
14:02Do you know a little bit you can show us?
14:06Okay.
14:07Let's see.
14:08Oh.
14:09So, yeah.
14:10So, the theme in the film, there are three themes.
14:15One is rhythmic, and two are melodic, and the rhythmic theme is based on a lot of Afro-Latin
14:21percussion that's from the African diaspora, not to alienate 99% of the people here, but
14:29just to explain it a little bit.
14:35There's a rhythm that comes from the West African tradition of the diaspora that led
14:40to the American shuffle rhythm that is the basis for a lot of the music that we know
14:43and love, which is the two against the three, the two against the six, it's a march against
14:47the waltz.
14:48It's one, two, one, two, one, two, and one, two, three, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
14:55Pete, you got it?
14:56All right.
14:57So, that's happening.
14:58And that creates this pressure.
15:00So, when you create that rhythm, I actually, let's try this.
15:06Everybody clap the two.
15:07Yeah.
15:08Yeah.
15:38So, that rhythmic tension is the basis of how the score came together.
15:51It's the obtuse rhythmic logic that keeps repeating that feels wrong, but it actually
15:58fits together in this way.
16:00So, that was just an example.
16:03Amazing.
16:04Yeah.
16:05Absolutely amazing.
16:06Before we go, I have to say, you had a wonderful documentary about you called American Symphony,
16:11and it was, yes, you saw it, and it was at Telluride, not this year, but last year, and
16:17I wound up sitting, I think it was at the NIAID movie, and you were sitting, you and
16:23your wife were sitting right behind me and my wife through that movie, which you didn't
16:28score.
16:29It was Alexander's Plot, and I kept hearing, all through it.
16:35You were doing the score of a movie you'd never seen.
16:42Music is in your head all day long, isn't it?
16:44Sorry, I have to share something.
16:46Okay.
16:47John, John is something that I've never heard of or experienced.
16:52You've heard of photographic memory.
16:55John genuinely has a photographic memory for sound, and we needed to add a little bit of
17:01piano to the movie, and we showed John the entire movie in one sitting, and then he
17:06sat down on a piano, and we started to play a scene back, and I said, do you need to see
17:11it a few times?
17:12He goes, no, and as the movie is playing, he starts playing back to the scene, which
17:17has all kinds of complicated edits and pauses and dialogue moves and things like that, and
17:22he plays back to the entire film from one viewing because he has a photographic memory
17:29for sound, and he can remember, after one sitting, every rhythmic beat down to the
17:35most infinitesimally small beat.
17:37Yeah, I think everybody could do it, if it's just like a muscle, you know, work on it.
17:46I've been playing since I was a kid, you know?
17:49It's amazing.
17:50Well, keep playing.
17:52Keep on playing.
17:53Amazing movie.
17:54Amazing movie.
17:55Saturday night, let's thank Jason Reitman, John Batiste.