As long as we, again, kind of keep earning the sequels with material and I'm confident Mike can, I'm in. You know I always want to do those. But I also want to keep going in some of the direction as Meet the Parents has.
Because I actually find the next take after they've controlled it a little bit and repressed the laughter is actually a really interesting take, because that's still going on underneath the surface. That struggle to maintain composure becomes part of the joy of the scene.
But I always reassure them that as far as my contractual rights can go, I will protect them and make sure that they have approval over every bit of it so that they know I won't show something that's embarrassing.
But I couldn't cut that whole septic tank scene out because the audience liked it so much. So I sort of fell right back into getting a cheap laugh, but I still loved it.
But yeah, it's a very good question. I think the main thing is just clinging to whatever approval you can get to make sure that nothing embarrassing gets out. There's, are hours of dailies that I would be very nervous about having seen if I was an actor where people are playing around.
I do love DVD and I've always taken them seriously. You know, on the Austin things, we really put a ton of work into them because there's so much design involved. And in this one, we thought a lot about it and what could go in.
I don't know if it's quite in the school of Something About Mary and Scary Movie. Even those two are different.
I figure if it's turns out well the film will have its own momentum and will carry into the video release. So it's hard to really picture the DVD version when I'm in production.
I hope we're all kind of influencing each other now to keep the quality up on those things. They seem to be getting better and better and better as there's not only sort of a film geek audience, there's also a general interest in the overall film consuming population.
I learn so much from watching films like that with commentary and then when you get to hear another filmmaker talk about their films it's a really great experience.
I love making people laugh. It's an addiction and it's probably dysfunctional, but I am addicted to it and there's no greater pleasure for me than sitting in a theater and feeling a lot of people losing control of themselves.
I never shoot for gag reel stuff. I haven't yet anyway. I do let the camera run when they break up because I very often try to get them to go back into character and do the next take while the camera is still rolling. That's why I get so much stuff where they're actually cracking up.
I really enjoy the consolation when I'm having to cut loose stuff I love, of saying 'Well, at least it will make it onto DVD.' There's a couple of scenes which I liked very much, but couldn't fit them into the film that are on there.
I shoot a lot more than I need and I give them license to really play and experiment on the set. If they thought that stuff was just fair game for some out-take reel or gag reel, I think they would get nervous about it.
I think sequels should be earned and we won't do it unless the script is better than the first one.
I think we'll all keep pushing each other, which is a great thing.
I'm close on a romantic comedy at Sony. It's kind of quirky, Hal Ashby, poetic comedy I guess.
I'm developing some other things in other genres, including one dramatic piece. So, anything's possible.
I'm looking forward to working with Mike again. I think he's a genius and I have so much fun making those films.
I'm not one of these directors, so far, that wants to have a whole separate director's cut of these things. So far they've turned out to be kind of the length that they wanted to be.
I've recently enjoyed the Paul Thomas Anderson commentaries and the David Fincher commentaries.
It was an interesting process trying to get Bob to talk about the film because he's such a shy person. He generally likes to talk when he really knows he has something to say.
Mike has stuff to say about that, but he doesn't have time to stay on that. He's very inclusive and really asks to be directed.
My biggest role as director on the film is keeping a sense of the overview - how to cast the movie and shoot it in such a way that it will cut together. And how to design the style and tone.
My favorite laser disk ever was the laser disk for The Graduate, which had a commentary track that wasn't even the filmmakers, it was a professor, some film criticism guy who just happen to be this amazing commentator who went off into the whole theory of comedy.
On the other track I got to talk with Jon Poll, my editor, and we go into more detail about the decisions we made in both the production and the post-production. So I hope the combination becomes something worth collecting.
Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that's really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.
The commentary track became a lot like the movie and there are some funny, long, awkward pauses that you can tell we're just trying to find stuff to say. None of us had gotten to really talk about the movie until that moment and they were in New York and we were in L.A.
The DVD does make it a little easier for myself to trim things that are otherwise very difficult to let loose of - knowing that they'll make it on the DVD.
The minute somebody starts trying to market that stuff, I think it would actually really be a harmful thing for the process of film making.
The success of the second 'Austin Powers' caught us by surprise a little bit. We had decided not to do even a second one, unless the audience wanted it and we could do something better.
Warner Bros. and New Line came out early as a couple of studios that were pushing them first. Mike and I had grown up on the Criterion Collection. We had studied filmmakers through them and enjoyed the extras, so we really took it seriously even though it wasn't a big consumer thing at the time.
We collaborate on everything. I'm involved in the writing and pre-production. There's a whole bunch of people who keep in touch at every step about everything.
We had to do the same thing here. To top that sequel was quite a task. Mike had a couple of good conceptual humour and character ideas, which got me back into it.
When I'm shooting, really the audience I'm thinking the hardest about is that first test screening audience who I want to like the film and that first opening weekend audience.
You could get in rehearsals, pre-production, anything that would actually contribute to the understanding of how a film gets made. I actually find those things increase people's interest in a movie and like that better than worrying about showing the tricks behind the curtain.
Jay is a graduate of Stanford University.
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