24 UK Podcast had a 40 minute sit down interview with Jon Cassar in London recently. Watch the video here and read his five most interesting responses below.
Time Jumps in 24: Live Another Day:
“Not that we do it a lot quite honestly. We’re not jumping [time] every ten minutes. It’s going to be very specific jumps that are important to the story, probably closer to the end.”
Leaving and Returning to “24”:
“I didn’t really want to leave, it was just circumstances that I can’t really talk about in detail. The opportunity to come back and finish it off? Absolutely, not even a hesitation. The show was the love of my life as far as my career goes. To go back and be able to finish it off, why would I say no to that? Now I get to do the last shot of Jack Bauer, whatever that’s going to be. There was a place in my heart saying that should have been me, that should have been me.”
Pitching more “24” television movies to FOX:
“I was always pitching the idea of doing a set of television movies like 24: Redemption. I always thought that was a good idea. So I said to them let’s do a TV movie every year, I think the fans would love that and it’d be a short time period for Kiefer and anybody else that’s coming back. And that kind of spun off into this miniseries.”
He’s still heavily involved in episodes that he doesn’t direct:
“I’m still a big part of the process. I’m at the script meetings as much as I can be, they show me the location photos, I’m involved in the casting. This is all on the episodes I don’t do. And basically I’m a support for that director. They can say look I’m having trouble with this, and how do I deal with that actor, or how do I deal with that crew. Whatever it is. I’m pretty much involved in everything, and also in post [production]. Once a director does his cut I’m involved as a producer then with what we do after that. So I’m involved in one way or another, I’m just not there to call action every day. That’s really just the difference.”
Jack’s kill count dossier:
“Actually it was really funny. Useful Company does all the graphic work for us, they’ve done the Bourne movies and other big pictures, they’re the ones that put it together. And basically it’s off the internet, that’s the best part. It’s not like we kept track of that – it’s the 24 Wiki or they pulled it off somewhere which I just thought was funny.
I was going to adjust it at some point because there’s no last names of people, and I just thought you know what? I’m going to let it stay in there. Because it’s a bit of a nod to the people on the internet, it’s our little easter egg. We know what you guys do and this is yours, we’re just kind of highlighting you in a way. So I kinda left it there. We knew people would freeze it and look at it and go look at all the names we remember.”
23 Comments
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May 24, 2014 at 3:20 pmGlad Jon can direct the season finale again.
Rebel2477
May 24, 2014 at 6:42 pmXAM
May 24, 2014 at 7:01 pmHis claims that season 1 looked too cinematic and that 24 shouldn’t be about sights and buildings really fucked me off.
Brad
May 24, 2014 at 7:18 pmXAM
May 24, 2014 at 9:09 pmI always seem to prefer episodes that aren’t directed by Jon. Going over the most visually stunning episodes in my mind (3x18 for example), I just checked out that none of them were Jon Cassar episodes. Fox must have made Jon their default director to save money, ‘cos his episodes always look so downbeat and cheap.
Gerry Mander
May 24, 2014 at 8:08 pmP.S. Sorry for the tone of this post, 24Spoilers, but this guy seriously needs putting in his place…
Gerry Mander
May 24, 2014 at 8:14 pmTJ
May 25, 2014 at 11:52 amInstead, if this ends up being nothing more than a 12-episode last gasp of air, it seems like a big anti-climactic exercise in torturing fans by reminding them of what they had, letting them get a sniff, only to take it away again. It would have been more honorable to qualify right away last spring when the news broke that no one was wanting or planning this current season to be any more than a 12-episode movie perse in a kind of a tribute/reunion mode. For them to start acknowledging that direction now after the season has already begun kind of dampens the enthusiasm in watching IMO and leaves a bittersweet aftertaste.
Mary
May 25, 2014 at 10:49 pmGerry Mander
May 26, 2014 at 1:00 amThat may have been their original plan, but if ratings continue to slide week on week, it’s not gonna happen, at this point I’d be doubtful it’ll happen anyway… I sure hope not, it would be SUCH a bone-headed move, ’24’ without Kiefer isn’t ’24’, it really is that simple.
XAM
May 24, 2014 at 9:13 pmBrad
May 24, 2014 at 9:20 pmHonestly, I think there’s something to be said about Cassar’s work in comparison to other directors who have worked on ’24’. I wouldn’t call him a ‘hack’ exactly, but his insistence on the show being almost exclusively gritty rather than cinematic could be viewed as a negative.
Gerry Mander
May 24, 2014 at 10:51 pmGerry Mander
May 24, 2014 at 11:19 pm24 Spoilers
May 25, 2014 at 2:52 pmOne example I remember off the top of my head was right after Richard Walsh was killed and Jack hops in his car and speeds down the freeway. The camera switches to a first person view from inside the vehicle and Hopkins makes the viewer feel as if they’re actually driving the car and speeding through red lights. Then it pans out a bit to show the car weaving through traffic, and then pans out even further to show the whole freeway with a beautiful aerial shot of Los Angeles at night.
In later seasons that would’ve just been a closeup of Kiefer’s face as he sat in a stationary car with a green screen behind him. Much faster and cheaper to film I’m sure, but it’s just not the same. That extra bit of polish is why I love the first season so much.
Acer4666
May 25, 2014 at 8:04 pm24 Spoilers
May 26, 2014 at 1:56 amAnother one I loved was the episode that started with a traffic report in a morning news helicopter. I think it was one of the Davis Guggenheim episodes that Gerry mentioned above. Not only did it give us some cool aerial shots but it was a really clever and natural way to recap the audience about what happened to Palmer in the previous episode(s).
These types of aerial shots showcasing a heavily populated city would’ve fit even better in Season 2 (and beyond) considering the larger scale threats.
Chris
May 31, 2014 at 7:22 pmAs a side note they had to push the film stock to 1000 ISO to gain the correct exposure.
TomW
May 25, 2014 at 8:44 amcaviar
May 25, 2014 at 8:45 pmClayton
May 26, 2014 at 6:18 pmBrad
May 27, 2014 at 2:01 amChris
May 31, 2014 at 7:17 pmHe created the look and tone of the show along with his regular DOP Peter Levy on the pilot and Rodney Charters thereafter. He made sure they shot on 35mm film rather than going down the digital path. He wanted it to look cinematic. He’d seen The Boston Strangler and thought the idea of using split screen would work.
If you’ve listened to several interviews with other department heads on the first season you’ll also realise that he was the one fighting battles on the front line with Fox to make sure the show was always the way they wanted it.
Hopkins had shot twelve episodes of the first season before Jon Cassar came on board to direct, so the groundwork had already been well established.
And that finale in Season One, nothing like that had ever appeared on television before. What originally started out as a thriller has gradually become standard action fare over the years, which is a shame.