Gadgetory

all right hey everybody thank you so much for coming and seeing the film with us thank you to Aaron and Danny for being with us this is obviously Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle I mean I have to tell me I don't shoot for The Verge you can clap for that if you said so I think it's it's we all just saw the movie it's obvious it's very powerful movie it's very emotional movie I have some questions here I'm really interested in the idea of Steve Jobs as a myth so I don't know how much you guys know about our site but I was just saying the verge is all about culture it's not really about technology technology is the engine of the culture and what we really want to do is talk about the people who helped shape the culture through the through the devices so here's my first question and it's it's really for both of you but I suspect one of it you will have a more distinct answer you just made a movie about Steve Jobs that never once the words Pixar iPhone or cancer are said out loud and I just wanted time that's a big bold choice those are three major plot points in his life and I think the iPhone in our entire world so talk about that choice sure I all those things that you said the things that the the big things that weren't mentioned all would come under the umbrella of this that before I knew what I wanted to do I knew what I didn't want to do and that was write a biopic cradle-to-grave story where we land on the character's greatest hits along the way and you just mentioned something surely if you were doing that movie absolutely that there would have been Pixar and he would have been diagnosed and there would have been the iPhone iPhone the iPod and the antitrust suit a lot of fight with Bill Gates a lot of things but I didn't want to do that that biopic structure is familiar to audiences and that's not a good thing I didn't think I'd be able to shake it it's I just didn't think that I'd do it well I was trying to see it I and it it wasn't feeling good to me I'm most comfortable as a playwright I I kind of faked my way through movies and and television shows I've been lucky I feel lucky I haven't been caught but as a playwright I like claustrophobic spaces I like compressed periods of time preferably with a ticking clock and I also love being behind the scenes and in this case we're bombing literally behind the scenes in some spectacular theaters in San Francisco Cupertino so I landed on the structure that you saw a movie that was made entirely of three scenes all of them in real time real time as you know is when 40 minutes for you in the audience the same as 40 minutes for a character on the screen all of them taking place backstage in the moments leading up to a product launch and I felt after a year year and a half roughly of spending time talking to the people closest to Steve including all of the people who you saw represented by characters in the movie with the exception of course of Steve who passed away already and a few dozen others that I had identified a handful of very interesting conflicts in Steve's life that a human conflicts with people that I felt we're dramatic that I could tell a story and and would illustrate some interesting things about Steve and kind of demonstrates some hypotheses that that I had and that meant that he wasn't going to die at the end it we we weren't a as far as Pixar goes I sort of always had it in the back of my mind it it should at least be mentioned but every time I always had it on an index card on a board somewhere but it never happened naturally it always felt like if I it was name-dropping frankly like you know the guy had to get in because some of that any promises the iPod he waves his hand at Scully and it's yes there's there was a in both cases there was a reason for it wha with the iPod with Lisa was you know I'm gonna put music in your pocket was I love you Lisa this is this is how I say it with Scully it was you know Scully had at the beginning of the seam accuses him of killing the Newton for spite and it was Steve at the end of or almost at the end of an act in which he'd been getting his brains beaten in in every scene saying to this guy you know not everything I do is because I'm a jerk and here's the difference between me and you not saying it in a mean way but touchpad technology is next not the stylist okay that's why I killed a Newman not because I'm a jerk so there was a reason for those things I believe me if I had discovered as you know an interesting conflict say what John Lasseter I there would have been a reason to have Pixar in the movie but the answer to your question is it's not a biopic it's it's something else it's no more a biopic than all the President's Men is a biopic about Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein it just happens to tell that story in their life and there's nothing and all the President's Men that then suggests that these guys were going to go on to to do what they did I think it's kind of funny that Apple just put out an iPad with the stylus like wow yeah unfortunate timing for us but or for them depending on how you look at it so Danny how did how do you deal with that with the notion that there's an element of this movie we presupposes some knowledge of jobs right it presupposes the fact that you know product launches are a big moment now in our culture and he was the one who led that it presupposes that you know he's dead how did you deal with the weight of kind of the reality and what people know versus the story you were trying to tell I think what I loved about the structure the idea of going behind the three product launches was exactly that it of it kind of like sidestep the myth it's a way of very deftly going all that stuff you know you know and there was stuff out there that people you can't resist but no I know I'm not very very techy but I knew the stuff about in that you know and I knew I'd seen the launches you know because they they made the national news even in Britain you know they'd be there and you'd see him so people are carrying that kind of luggage and it's a great way a little sidestep of it because it goes it's one of this six industries he revolutionized product launches and we don't see them because actually it's the 40 minutes he walks on on stage and you stop and I think that's a lovely way of encouraging that it's an abstract the way we did you know the scheme of it to deal with him isn't it's not like a biopic it's actually it's more like an abstract and actually the that was one of the reasons that we we didn't want him we didn't want him slavish ly to look like him to begin with because we wanted to send that the the signal very early on to you as you as you set your brain for it to watch it that it's clearly not you know a photographic impersonation full of mannerisms that he he had and that it is slightly fictive in that sense although it's based on lots of facts and and then Erin's cleared out other facts that were that don't concern is at the moment so how did you particular with Michael Fassbender who looks nothing like Steve joy I mean like the first act he's like sexy Steve Jobs but he's like ripped like Steve Jobs was never raped how did you kind of manage the tension between you don't look anything like him but we want you to talk like him but we also want you to talk like Aaron Sorkin would write Steve Jobs how do you kind of navigate that line it's kind of you know an actor gets a part and they start to explore or because what they find interesting about it internally that's one of the wonderful things about actors you can set them to actually explore it from the public side of it ie set about trying to look like him have prosthetic surgery knock out your front teeth you know the weird stuff you hear about you can ask them to do that or you say don't do that find it internally and that's what he set off to do and you can see him in that for it for me it's really interesting the first act obviously jobs is fighting the IBM edifice he's the rebel he wants to smash it down but in a way Michael was also grappling with this monster part that Aaron's written and he's kind of you can feel his finger it's like punkish kind of crash away at everything that's trying to hold him back and then by the time you get to the third part you can feel you could feel him as an actor he kind of got it and he begins to look like him in a weird way I mean I know it's been easy because he is the age then you know he's about the right age that Michael is but he kind of it was more the rhythm of it he was suddenly in it and Ollie and Jeff Daniels who would always not knows Aaron's work there's a lot of experience merizan said that's what it's like you've got a wrestler it talks of it like an animal you've gotta get it down control it get on top of it and then off you go and you can go anywhere with it then and it looks very intimidating at first a so much dialogue but actually it's a liberation when you when you find yourself on when you got it it's you can sort of do you hope you can go anywhere with it so that's interesting to me because you're talking about writing you're talking about a character that's created and that's the point III I think another way to answer your question is you you play the character in the script don't don't worry about the real Steve Jobs the real Joanna how often the real woz and I play the character in the script so but this is for example you and Tim Cook have been speaking around each other for a few days now you've got mean who did you talk to you write you talked to Lisa you talked to was Johnny I yeah I said I took I talk to everybody you see in the movie Lisa was very important to talk to she did not want to talk to Walter Isaacson when Walter was writing the book because her father was still alive and that's understandable but she was ready to talk to me so I spent a lot of time with her everyone you see in the movie John Sculley also was in in news parlance a get after John Sculley left Apple he really barely spoke to anyone and went down to Florida and lived a very quiet life this that episode was and still is just very painful for him is a dramatic moment that he hadn't quite recovered from until a few years ago he's in the 70s now he remarried a wonderful woman named Diane and Diane has kind of made it her mission to correct the record and and get John out there in the world don't get up off the mat and correct the record because as he says in in the second act the story of how and why you left Apple which is quickly becoming mythologized is not true so speaking to John Sculley was important but beyond that yes Johnny I've Lee Clow just many of the engineers coders designers at Apple as well as some people further down the ladder a great conversation with a woman whose job it was at one of the launches iiiiii if I could go back and get my notes I can tell you which one but I can't remember now one of the launches happened to coincide with the five-year anniversary of another product and so Steve wanted a slide of a birthday cake with candles on it up for this launch to remind the audience that it's the five-year anniversary of this other product and this woman's job was to find the cake and first went to the the greatest pastry chefs in all the land uh uh who each would make her a cake and she would bring it in for Steve and no no no no no finally the cake he settled on she went to a grocery store and like went to the cake on it like the Entenmann's aisle and that's the one uh he liked and so that's where I got they you know the shark thing from in the sack and I so I spoke to a lot of people and that was obviously Walters book was was sort of the rock on which the church was built but uh I had read everything else but it was the first person research it was talking to these people that really you know made the engine turn over so this is but this kind of goes back to this attention I'm talking about between the myth and reality like Walters book for example has been criticized a lot for some inaccuracies um and you're talking about setting the record straight with John Sculley and there's nobody knows his story so that story is now here but then there are other parts like the fact that next was a 14-year project that did actually have an OS that wasn't designed to be sold to Apple how do you kind of reconcile that III reconcile it this way I know what happen argument with you about the truth of of next but I Steve you know Steve here's what we can agree on I'm sure Steve's returned to Apple was a result of Apple buying next buying next because they had to because next had an OS that they needed Mille steps in between and Steve as he was able to do often in his life was able to look down the road and see what was going to happen because Apple wasn't innovating at the time there was after Scullion before Steve the CEO was a gil amelio and Gil Amelio Steve knew that Gil Amelio was gonna have to answer to Wall Street and Wall Street was going to want hard proof that there is going to be a change that Gil Amelio was gonna have to say but look at her new OS that that we've got it's it's like two great chess players who never really play until checkmate they play until 14 moves before checkmate when one of them is able to look at the board and say you're gonna win I that was Steve was the winner in that game but your question was how do i reconcile that with facts yeah right I reconcile it this way and I know that the language I'm gonna use sounds like I'm skating around a problem but I really believe this there is a difference between journalism and what I do and what Danny does and that doesn't give you a license to lie but the difference between journalism and what we do is the same as the difference between a photograph and a painting and what we're doing is a painting i those facts that you're talking about are not as important in this story as the fact that Steve was able to climb his way back to Apple that that car that that next was the car that drove him there that you can't really call it a failure it got him back to Apple that was the more important truth and the most important truth in the movie are the conflicts the the points of friction that he had with these people and is what the people in these people in his life and what they do to illustrate to bring into relief the man as far as the man versus the myth that was kind of the beginning for me that that it's I I was offered the job of adapting Walters book just a couple of weeks after Steve died and when I had witnessed and even though I've owned all these products everything I've ever written I've written Mack I've got an iPhone in my pocket I still like my iPod I haven't put my music on my phone because I like the way the wheel clicks and yeah I agree I was still astonished at the way that Steve Jobs was eulogized when he died I had no idea that the world had this kind of emotional connection to him when what they really had was an emotional connection to his products the way we didn't really have an emotional connection to John Lennon we had an emotional connection to his songs right and I thought I boy I missed something that everyone else got and I want to catch up uh and I want to write about this I think so I gotta ask Danny there's another movie that Aaron's written that is in this lineage right it's the social network and I look at the social network and obviously David Fincher directed it it's dark it's I actually heard you say in Monday everyone that movie is always sitting down and this movie is bright it's moving its energetic how did you go about sort of acting in this lineage and making this sort of painting versus no I think always free yeah well and the guy the kind of kingmaker if you like is Scott Rudin the producer and who produced a social-networking rang up and said you know finches dropped out and would you want to read it I said yeah I'll read it and because I love social network and I think Finch is a wonderful director and also directs for the enormous it's a compressed energy he has it's a kind of like mine's more a kind of open energy but he compresses it in it and but and I'd loved I read this and was blown away and it feels like it was the same I think it's the same film I never have a problem admitting that because it is it's basically what these people who have made such an imprint on our world have literally made the dent in the universe what were they you know what did they amount to as people as you know they're one of us because you can all there in the stratosphere and of success they're out of sight you know and that was another reason why it's good I think that he avoids the later later products it's because he's just still within reach really but once that IMAX launch because it needs achieve so much of the vision and then and suddenly the products are super sexy and cool and you will take them to bed with you I mean you can't with the iMac because it's a bit bulky but it's soon that you as you will all will tonight as we all will tonight we take one to bed with us and some of them some of us leave them leave them on monitoring what we're doing in bed in the night I mean you know it's like you know so it's like um so III III III I jumped at it because it had a kind of the other thing about it is different from social network is that it has he somehow caught this restlessness of the guy's mind and that's the movement you get in it whereas sorting like what's all sitting down as they kind of strategize and then when occasionally they get up and there's a crisis you know when they actually get out of their seats whereas this one nobody was in a/c and if they were in a seat there was a very particular reason because it's and it's the restlessness of his mind it's literally a it's a wonderful clue for a director you know so I gotta ask we're out of time so last question here who's getting the next one is a goober is it snapchat how do you how do you how do you carry on this well you know I'll say Danny keeps first of all I want to say one thing Danny every time he talks about what he just talked about in his typically self-effacing way a more humble man you're not going to meet always makes it sound like he was our second choice Danny Boyle is nope Danny Boyle is nobody's second choice okay you know we went to Fincher because we just done a movie together of course we did uh Danny's gonna do a sequel to Trainspotting he's not gonna ask me to write it and I think it would be a variant would be introduced I but but Danny keeps saying that he believes that this movie is the second in a trilogy a attack trilogy while I keep saying that it's simply a coincidence that that those that I wrote about detect I could you write a sequel to this movie I if I were able to find more conflict out there and I felt like the audience was able to sit through another three acts of talking and especially if I had a chance to work with Danny in this cast again you better alright well thank you so much for being here we're gonna do 30 minutes on the newsroom outside I asked everybody what I should ask you know I quote stuck with a newsroom that's fine but thank you guys so much for being here thank you guys for coming and there's drinks thanks a lot appreciate