Jerry Bruckheimer on "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"

MakingOf: When you first read a script, what has to be there for you to get involved?

(Jerry Bruckheimer) Do I like it?  That's the key.  Do I like it.  Does it entertain me? Do I follow those characters?  Do I understand what's going on.  Is it fresh?  Is it new? Is it interesting?

MO: Can you describe what it was like when you first read or how you got involved with "Sorcerer's Apprentice?"

(JB) Yeah.  Nicholas Cage came to me along with Todd Garner and they said that 'this is something we want to get kick-started.  It's a project we've been working on for quite a while and we need some new energy into it.'  So I joined in and we brought in Jon Turtertaub, who came in and joined us, and we worked with the original writer and then we brought some additional writers in, and spent a lot of time developing the story.  And finally we got to a place where Disney said 'this is a movie we'd like to see and we want to make.'  And then we started making it.

 MO:What does that timeline look like, for people who don't understand?

(JB) Years, years, years.  You have to outline it.  You have to spend time creating the characters.  Where is the plot going?  Does it make sense?  Is it realistic?  All those kinds of things.  It just takes a long time.  You outline it, you make notes on the outline, they come back.  Sometimes they right a treatment after they do the outline.  So it's a long process.  They sit in rooms with us for days just pitching ideas and trying to make it all work.

 MO: Do you have a favorite part of that process?

(JB) You know what I love the story process, I love the casting process.  The filming process is really up to the director, that's his gig.  The thing that you really shouldn't do as a producer is to stand over the director when he's making the movie.  It's really his set and he has to be responsible for those actors.  They have to look to him.  I don't want them looking at me.  I want them to focus on the director.  So I'll try to help the director as far as preparing for the next day and the next week...or help him through the daily process if something isn't quite working right we'll try to put a band-aid on it and make it work.  And then the editing room, I love that.  I love working in the editing room, I love the music part of it and I love promoting the film, doing the sound work.  That part is a lot of fun.  But when you're actually making the film, even though we're there, it's really the director.

MO:Now working with Jon what was that relationship like and what sort of conversations did you have in pre-production and then throughout production?

(JB) Well, you know, you start with screenplays.  You discuss all the characters.  You discuss the plot.  You discuss individual scenes and you try to come to a point where you have mutual feelings about everything and  you come to a point where you test everything.  He'll run an idea by me.  I'll run an idea by him.  So you keep working at something and you keep honing it down until we're both really happy with the process.  You know, I have two executives in my company who work very hard on these screenplays.  Mike Stenson and Chad Omen, they sit in the room with writers and work months and years sometimes on these projects.  And Jon will join that session and he'll bring stuff to me, and I'll read it and give him notes and we'll sit in the room all over again.  So it goes on for over a year.

MO: There are so many tremendous effects in this movie.  Where do you even begin?

(JB) Well you start with storyboards.  That's how it starts.  You draw up what the vision is and then the storyboard artists will work with the director and the director will come to me and then show us the stuff and then we'll take that and we'll do what you call a pre-vis where some computer graphics people come in and take those storyboards and make them into a video game.  So you can see actually how everything works...and you add music to that and you see...and you refine it, and you keep changing it.  Sometimes it's too long or it's too short.  So you do more storyboards until you get to a place where the director and myself are very happy with the sequence, like the car chase is an example.  And then you have that visualization that you give to your digital people, you give it to your actors so they know exactly what they're doing and how it's going to be portrayed on film.

 MO:With each project do you find that there's always something that surprises you that you haven't encountered before?

(JB) It's always better than I ever imagine it to be.  Every one of them.  And that's the key, to surround yourself with really talented people.  A lot of people are afraid of talented people because it might usurp their own, but I'm the opposite.  I want them to be a lot smarter than me.