This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Eila Mell: Hey everyone, this is Berk Swanson, and you're listening to Behind The Awards.

[0:13] Bruce Gotlieb: Hello and welcome to Behind The Awards.

[0:15] Eila Mell: I'm Eila. I'm here with Bruce.

[0:18] Bruce Gotlieb: Hello there, Eila. How are you?

[0:20] Eila Mell: I'm good. I'm excited because we have a great guest on today.

[0:24] Bruce Gotlieb: We do. So I'm going to I want to bring you back in time a little bit.

[0:30] Eila Mell: OK, so when I was a kid, I used to have this VHS tape.

[0:35] Bruce Gotlieb: I'm sure it was like a special that was on TV that was recorded.

[0:38] Eila Mell: And I then would watch it at Nauseam.

[0:42] Bruce Gotlieb: I would also there was a very specific part of it that I would watch, too.

[0:47] Eila Mell: So Doug Hennings, who's a magician,

[0:51] Bruce Gotlieb: obviously from back in the 70s, 80s, said all these specials.

[0:55] Eila Mell: And there was one special that was on TV

[0:57] Bruce Gotlieb: where he had Andrea McArdle as, you know, as Annie.

[1:04] Eila Mell: But this was later on. She had already left the show.

[1:06] Bruce Gotlieb: She was probably maybe 12, 13, I would assume, if not even a little bit older.

[1:13] Eila Mell: Probably older. Yeah.

[1:14] Bruce Gotlieb: So he had her on and they were doing this number and he talks about and brings her

[1:20] Eila Mell: out and she's standing there's a slide like a playground slide that's brought out

[1:25] Bruce Gotlieb: on stage and she starts, you know, he's talking to her and then asks her to sing

[1:31] Eila Mell: tomorrow so she can start singing it as she's doing this.

[1:35] Bruce Gotlieb: She gets up on the top of the slide.

[1:38] Eila Mell: Yeah, OK. And then she slides down.

[1:41] Bruce Gotlieb: Right.

[1:42] Eila Mell: She comes out younger because at exiting the slide at the base is Alison Smith.

[1:50] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, what?

[1:51] Eila Mell: Who is now the younger Annie, finishing the song in the same outfit and all.

[1:57] Bruce Gotlieb: But then this is clearly a covered slide.

[2:00] Eila Mell: You can't see her sliding down. Correct.

[2:03] Bruce Gotlieb: But where does she go? Because there's

[2:06] Eila Mell: really gravity has a hand in that.

[2:10] Bruce Gotlieb: Right. It's a thing.

[2:11] Eila Mell: Oh, my gosh.

[2:13] Bruce Gotlieb: So you ever saw that?

[2:14] Eila Mell: No, I never saw that.

[2:16] Bruce Gotlieb: I might have posted it on our Instagram a little ways back.

[2:19] Eila Mell: It's just oh, it's such a treat.

[2:23] Bruce Gotlieb: I mean, Doug Henning at one point was the only magician a lot of people knew.

[2:27] Eila Mell: Right.

[2:28] Bruce Gotlieb: I mean, the illusions and the things that he did were

[2:33] Eila Mell: just captivating.

[2:35] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah. Wow.

[2:37] Eila Mell: And to have Annie, that's just brilliant.

[2:39] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, and that's just it.

[2:41] Eila Mell: I mean, there was this this whole, you know,

[2:44] bring in the Broadway aspect.

[2:46] Bruce Gotlieb: And of course, at that time, you know, in the 80s, what was bigger than than Annie?

[2:52] Eila Mell: I mean, and now here we are on the brink

[2:53] Bruce Gotlieb: of the 50th anniversary, but, you know, yeah, it's still so like

[2:58] Eila Mell: Andrew McArdle is like the be all and end all, really.

[3:01] Bruce Gotlieb: Right. Of course she is, Annie.

[3:03] Eila Mell: I mean, I know you feel very strongly about

[3:06] Bruce Gotlieb: Aileen Quinn, as many people do, and I recognize that for many people.

[3:11] Eila Mell: She is there, Annie, but I am an Andrew McArdle person.

[3:15] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes, yes.

[3:16] Eila Mell: Very much so.

[3:17] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, but anyway, speaking of magic on Broadway.

[3:20] Eila Mell: Well, yes.

[3:21] Bruce Gotlieb: Thanks to our guest, Chris Fisher, who we have on

[3:25] Eila Mell: magic and the illusions from Harry Potter

[3:28] Bruce Gotlieb: to Stranger Things to now Paranormal Activity.

[3:32] Eila Mell: Magic and illusions is alive and well.

[3:35] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes. And that's what people talk about when

[3:38] they see these shows, how great the illusions are.

[3:41] Eila Mell: So we have a great conversation with him.

[3:43] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes. Let's bring him out.

[3:44] Eila Mell: Absolutely.

[3:48] Eila Mell: Well, we are so excited to welcome Chris Fisher to Behind the Awards.

[3:52] Chris Fisher: Hello. Hey, how are you?

[3:53] Eila Mell: Thanks for having me.

[3:54] Chris Fisher: Oh, my God.

[3:55] Eila Mell: Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule for us.

[3:59] Eila Mell: My first question is,

[4:01] Chris Fisher: did you always want to be a magician when you were younger?

[4:04] Eila Mell: Like the illusions, the magic that you're

[4:06] Chris Fisher: creating on stage is like nothing anybody's ever seen.

[4:11] Chris Fisher: In the answer to the question, yes.

[4:12] Chris Fisher: I mean, every magician has their kind of their story.

[4:16] Chris Fisher: But yeah, I my story is that I broke my leg when I was three.

[4:21] Chris Fisher: I jumped off a stool into a paddling boat, broke my leg, ended up in hospital in traction for six weeks.

[4:27] Chris Fisher: And my parents brought different things in each day to try and keep me occupied and keep me busy.

[4:34] Chris Fisher: And one of the things that brought me was a magic set.

[4:36] Chris Fisher: And I fell in love with it and I started doing magic tricks to all the other patients that were in there.

[4:41] Chris Fisher: And then when I came out of hospital, I carried on doing magic to family and to friends and I would save up my pocket money and go buy another trick.

[4:49] Chris Fisher: And yes, so basically since I was four, I've been doing magic my whole life.

[4:53] Chris Fisher: And theater sort of came along and I became a stage manager and I worked in theater for like 20 years doing stage managing, but all the time doing magic.

[5:01] Chris Fisher: And then suddenly in the last 15 years, the two have collided.

[5:05] Chris Fisher: And I'm doing both of my loves now, which is amazing.

[5:09] Eila Mell: How did that happen?

[5:10] Chris Fisher: How did people finally realize that you had this secret ability?

[5:14] Chris Fisher: I used to do magic for like casts and companies.

[5:17] Chris Fisher: So they would sort of come into the company office and I would do a few tricks and then I was company manager of Wicked for nearly five years in London.

[5:25] Chris Fisher: And we used to have magic Saturdays after warm ups.

[5:28] Chris Fisher: Every Saturday after warm ups, I would perform a trick and all the crew would come down, everyone would watch.

[5:33] Chris Fisher: And it was stressful because I had to try and think of a new trick every single every single week.

[5:37] Chris Fisher: So I was like, oh, I don't really

[5:40] Chris Fisher: but and, you know, it's a word got out that I was doing magic.

[5:44] Chris Fisher: David Stone is producer of Wicked, the US producer of Wicked.

[5:47] Chris Fisher: He really loved that.

[5:48] Chris Fisher: At one point, I think he said to me, like, you know, if you ever want to put any magic into Wicked, then you're more than welcome.

[5:54] Chris Fisher: There's not going to pay you.

[5:55] Chris Fisher: And I was like, OK, but but but yeah, but people start to notice.

[5:59] Chris Fisher: And then the kind of big pivotal thing was I was stage managing some workshops for a production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

[6:06] Chris Fisher: I met now a very good friend of mine, Jamie Harrison, who was designing the illusions and puppets.

[6:12] Chris Fisher: And he said, would you come and work with me on the production?

[6:14] Chris Fisher: And I was absolutely.

[6:15] Chris Fisher: And then, you know, one thing led to another.

[6:17] Chris Fisher: And then a couple of years after Charlie, Jamie called me and he said, I've just been asked to do the magic for Harry Potter.

[6:22] Chris Fisher: Would you like to come and do it with me?

[6:24] Chris Fisher: And I was like, yes.

[6:27] Chris Fisher: And then just and then just off the back of Harry Potter and and those kind of shows, it's just erupted.

[6:33] Chris Fisher: And it just feels like every producer and director is starting to feel and understand what illusion and magic can do within a show.

[6:38] Chris Fisher: And it's not just your conventional magic tricks or your appearances or disappearances, other things.

[6:46] Chris Fisher: It's horror. It's paranormal activity.

[6:49] Chris Fisher: You know, it's all those things.

[6:50] Chris Fisher: But, you know, the background of magic and what it can facilitate into a show,

[6:56] Chris Fisher: you know, I've done shows like Company and Angels in America.

[7:00] Chris Fisher: And people say, what what illusions are in those shows?

[7:02] Chris Fisher: And it's like, well, I've got visionary directors like Marion Elliott who can think about outside the box and how we can use these disciplines to create other things.

[7:10] Chris Fisher: So, yeah, it's it's a long winding sort of like alleyways and avenues.

[7:16] Chris Fisher: But they've all suddenly converged.

[7:18] Chris Fisher: And genuinely, you know, I've always loved theater.

[7:20] Chris Fisher: I've always loved magic.

[7:22] Chris Fisher: To be doing the two now is just and, you know, come to Broadway and having shows on Broadway.

[7:28] Chris Fisher: Honestly, you know, younger version of me would never have believed it, especially because it wasn't the plan.

[7:34] Chris Fisher: It just worked out. That's crazy.

[7:35] Eila Mell: Yeah, totally.

[7:36] Chris Fisher: I, you know, I thought I'd probably be a company manager all my life.

[7:39] Chris Fisher: And I nearly was, you know, in life, you sort of reach those crossroads.

[7:44] Chris Fisher: And for me, you know, I was very happy on Wicked.

[7:48] Chris Fisher: I was loving working on Wicked and worked there nearly five years and then this Harry Potter call came along.

[7:52] Chris Fisher: And I and Wicked were brilliant.

[7:54] Chris Fisher: And they said, we'll give you a sabbatical.

[7:56] Chris Fisher: You have to come back for a year.

[7:57] Chris Fisher: And I was like, OK.

[7:58] Chris Fisher: So when I did Wicked, when I did Harry Potter, came back for a year.

[8:01] Chris Fisher: And then Broadway Potter came along and they asked me to Broadway and Wicked really wanted to keep me.

[8:07] Chris Fisher: And they said, well, we'll give you another sabbatical.

[8:09] Chris Fisher: You need to come back for a year.

[8:10] Chris Fisher: At that point, I was like.

[8:12] Chris Fisher: No, there's like this is exciting.

[8:13] Chris Fisher: I'm doing these things.

[8:15] Chris Fisher: And then I took the plunge and I was like, I'm going to do this.

[8:18] Chris Fisher: And yeah, it's paid off.

[8:20] Chris Fisher: It's really paid off because now you're the guy that people think of when they think of illusions on Broadway and probably in the West End too.

[8:29] Chris Fisher: No, it's exciting.

[8:31] Chris Fisher: It's really lovely to be what's really exciting.

[8:34] Chris Fisher: And we've really worked on this is and it's lovely to think of myself like that.

[8:40] Chris Fisher: And I like to think that people will come to me if they want me on if they want illusion in the project.

[8:43] Chris Fisher: But what is even more exciting is that the stage that we come into the show now,

[8:48] Chris Fisher: you know, in years gone by, it might have been you call up a magical consultant because, you know, you're in rehearsals and I suddenly want this to happen and so you'd be brought in halfway through rehearsals and you have to try and make something quickly that will, you know, be able to sort of like be able to rehearse very quickly and everything.

[9:06] Chris Fisher: Those sort of effects always feel shoehorned in.

[9:09] Chris Fisher: They don't feel cohesive, they don't feel part of a production.

[9:11] Chris Fisher: And I like to think what what we've achieved now is the point I'm called to join a production is right at the very start, you know, literally before anything's been designed.

[9:20] Chris Fisher: And in the case of Paranormal Activity, it was before, you know, we'd even started to think about the set design.

[9:26] Chris Fisher: You know, I came in and had a chat with Leva, the writer, and Felix, the director, and we sat around the table and we started thinking about ideas and things like that, and we had a big workshop of illusions and effects and things we might be able to put into the show.

[9:41] Chris Fisher: And off the back of that, then we sat down with Fly and Fly designed the house in Paranormal Activity around what I needed it to do.

[9:51] Chris Fisher: And that is the best form of collaboration.

[9:55] Chris Fisher: I think you can have in terms of putting illusion design into a show, you know, it's illusion should serve a narrative.

[10:02] Chris Fisher: It should serve the story.

[10:03] Chris Fisher: It should feel part of the environment.

[10:06] Chris Fisher: No one wants to see a trick coming,

[10:08] Chris Fisher: see a box coming on and think, oh, that's going to do that.

[10:11] Chris Fisher: You know, if I can come in at the beginning of a process like that,

[10:15] Chris Fisher: then I can and everything else be designed around it.

[10:18] Chris Fisher: Then, you know, you can look at that Paranormal Activity house on stage and it's like a box of tricks.

[10:23] Chris Fisher: But you wouldn't know it, you know.

[10:24] Eila Mell: Right. No, you wouldn't know it.

[10:26] Chris Fisher: It just looks like, you know, like a set.

[10:28] Chris Fisher: You have no idea what's going to happen.

[10:30] Eila Mell: You know, one one of the things that I think is so great is

[10:35] Eila Mell: the illusions and the tricks are so effective.

[10:38] Eila Mell: The the scene where and I'm going to try

[10:42] Eila Mell: not to give anything away to anybody who hasn't seen it yet.

[10:44] Eila Mell: But the scene at the sink with the bathrobe.

[10:46] Chris Fisher: Yeah, that is the thing that happens.

[10:50] Eila Mell: I mean, I'm sure you've experienced it

[10:52] Eila Mell: from being there during previews and standing in the back of the house.

[10:55] Eila Mell: The entire audience gasps.

[10:57] Chris Fisher: Yeah.

[10:58] Eila Mell: There's a verbal, you know, at that point, like that's got to be such,

[11:04] Eila Mell: you know, almost like getting an award for it, because it's so it's so fulfilling

[11:09] Eila Mell: that, oh, my God, it worked and we've tricked all of these people.

[11:13] Chris Fisher: Yeah. I mean, I mean, yeah, absolutely.

[11:17] Chris Fisher: You design all these effects in a show and you and you never know, really.

[11:20] Chris Fisher: You know, none of the effects I put into a show are shop bought tricks.

[11:24] Chris Fisher: You know, they're all made for the show.

[11:27] Chris Fisher: They're bespokely made and you never know if they're going to work or not.

[11:30] Chris Fisher: You know, and that that effect, you know,

[11:33] Chris Fisher: you're talking about was one of the effects that we did in that very,

[11:37] Chris Fisher: very first workshop, you know, and literally I make a lot of stuff out of cardboard and gaffer and tape and, you know, very, very crude,

[11:44] Chris Fisher: just to kind of proof of concept stuff.

[11:46] Chris Fisher: And that was one of the effects.

[11:48] Chris Fisher: And I don't think I'd ever known way back

[11:51] Chris Fisher: then in that kind of like workshop space in southwest London,

[11:54] Chris Fisher: that it was going to get the reaction on the hype it's kind of got.

[11:58] Chris Fisher: And and you never, you know,

[11:59] Chris Fisher: you design effects hoping that there'll be something that effect, I think,

[12:03] Chris Fisher: is probably getting the biggest reaction I've ever had to any effect I've ever done.

[12:08] Chris Fisher: And, you know, it's but it's, yeah, and it and to be honest with you,

[12:12] Chris Fisher: you know, paranormal activities become like that as well.

[12:15] Chris Fisher: And I think the enjoyment of watching that show is screaming and gasping as a as an ensemble, you know, with each other.

[12:25] Chris Fisher: And it's infectious.

[12:26] Chris Fisher: And I love the fact that that moment is doing that for everyone.

[12:29] Chris Fisher: And then you sort of go into that scene change.

[12:31] Chris Fisher: There was a lot of, you know,

[12:34] Chris Fisher: and yeah, and of course, it's really gratifying.

[12:37] Chris Fisher: It's very gratifying when you sort of get a response like that and you think, oh, it's landing, you know.

[12:41] Chris Fisher: And it wasn't until, you know, we've had this show in a few incarnations now, but I never knew it was going to be like that.

[12:51] Chris Fisher: As they are, they are the loudest audiences in the world, I think you know. They are the most brilliant people that show their emotions and share their laughter and show their reactions. And what's been really brilliant for me is we've played in lots of houses. When we first created the show, it was in the north of England in a quite small theatre, and we're playing in the West End now about 450, 500 people. You always want, you know, 12, 1300 people. To have 12, 1300 people having that reaction, you know, I've never enjoyed watching preview after preview after preview in a preview period than this show because of that.

[13:33] Eila Mell: Yeah, I can see why, because it's such a huge—I mean that moment, but then there's so many moments after that. Act two especially has a lot more.

[13:41] Chris Fisher: Yeah, moments. So are you gonna tell us how you did that sync trick? Is there anything you can tell us?

[13:46] Chris Fisher: Do you know what? I often obviously get asked how effects are done, and I never tell anything interesting. I always do when I first start on a show and I speak with actors, I have this talk which I'm about to give you, which is keep the secrets. But it's not—it's why we keep the secrets. The thing is that magic, when you know how something's done, it can often be quite disappointing. When you see something, you kind of like, "Oh my gosh," and your mind's racing. So how could it be that? Could it be this? I mean, the theories I've seen for some of the effects in the show online or read and stuff like that are crazy. It makes us all laugh. We read them like, "Oh my god," because sometimes it's like the simplest thing is like how we would do it, but it's the dressing around it, you know?

But magic is disappointing when you know how something's done. You're gonna go and you never get that moment back of like that, like not knowing how something's done. So I always have a chat with every company I work with, which is like, people are gonna ask you, just don't say anything. Even if they chance upon the real secrets, don't say anything. Just say, "No, that's not how it's done." And then people then still like, "Oh my god." Well, it's much more exciting to live in that wonder than to know how something's done. So no, no, I'm not gonna say.

[15:02] Eila Mell: And we tried as hard as we could to get it out of cast members that we interviewed for Stranger Things, and they all followed your rules.

[15:10] Chris Fisher: So yeah, we had the beach out of Stranger Things. I mean, the actors, you know, the actors are my magicians, you know, they're out there. But you know, we start early on in the process, and you know, both of those shows, there are people doing quite advanced sleight-of-hand stuff, you know, quite advanced misdirection. Lots of those things. And you know, they're not magicians. I call it the fourth threat. You got the triple threat; this is like the fourth threat—magic. Magic in the show, and some people pick it up really easily, and some people find it really hard. And it is hard because, you know, I often tell a company after they keep the secrets chat, I have the chat which is that magic can be tricky—excuse the pun.

It can be fiddly, it can be hard, it can feel really contrived. The things I'm going to ask you to do, you're gonna think, "Oh my god, how can an audience not think I'm doing this?" Or "How can they not see me doing this?" It's like, "No, no, trust. Trust in the mechanics of what we're doing. Trust in the misdirection. Trust in the blocking we're going to be giving you because that is going to make it feel naturalistic." And the other thing as well is kind of what I alluded to earlier, which is about illusion really being a part of a narrative and being a part of a story. And that's where I think magic really resonates in theater. It's all to do with the storytelling. But anyone can go buy a magic trick and say, "Here's the magic trick."

But if you build a story around it, if you build an emotion around it that people can draw into and relate to, that effect is so much bigger. It's so much more effective. It's so much more powerful for the person watching it.

[17:29] Chris Fisher: So for me, you know, with Paranormal Activity, you know, we've got this amazing couple, Sharon and Travis, playing Lou and James. They're so believable as a couple. They're so naturalistic. You're just—we purposely sit with them. And yes, there are a couple of little, "Is something gonna happen? No, it's not." "Is something gonna happen? No, it's not," you know, and in a typical horror movie. But generally in that first scene, you just get to know this lovely couple, and you just get absorbed. You feel like that fly on the wall. You feel like you're just watching a couple of, you know, that could be just on the road, your friends or wherever. And that is gonna make everything that happens thereafter so much better, so much bigger.

And in terms of myself, you know, and so, yeah, by the time they get to do the tricky things or things that we need to do, we're forgiving it. But if anything slightly arrives, because we've gone on the ride, you know, right? You have to disarm people to bring them in, and once you have them, now you can play tricks on them.

[18:40] Chris Fisher: Exactly. I call it, you know, it's almost like waves, you know, on a roller coaster or something like that, where you kind of go up and you think you know somewhere, and you come down. If you go up, you happen to be, but then what you do is you go on an offbeat. It's like you think you've got this rhythm going. It's—I know it's gonna bang. Oh, no. Whoa, okay, that got me, you know? And it's not that with jump scares as well. It's like, you know, what is a good jump scare? We really analyze jump scares in Stranger Things. It's like what makes a good jump scare? One of the things that makes a good jump scare we found out is the actors jumping. You know the thing where like you sometimes you see someone in there and then you jump and they jump too?

You know? And it's often like the second reaction of the jump is bigger, and that's like an audience reaction. Something happens and the actors are like—we have this whole thing was like, "Go big with that." So Travis and Sharon play it big, like, "Wow!" We go off like, you know, the audience. It's like it's just feeding off their emotions and their reactions as well.

[19:40] Chris Fisher: It's, um, yeah, it feels like the illusions in Stranger Things are so much different than in Paranormal Activity. It's just like, I don't know, they're more visual, like the ship in Stranger Things.

[19:55] Chris Fisher: Yeah, I mean, the thing is, you know, I mean apart from budget, the most bigger thing. But yeah, in the Stranger Things world, you know, we—I mean, it obviously is a bigger show. And it's in a show of Stranger Things, it's in a show of make-believe, of monsters, of everything that goes. So within that, and because I guess of the—what you see in the Stranger Things seasons, there's an expectancy of those kind of bigger sequences which we had to deliver on. So we needed to hit hard at the beginning with that. You know, there was a big thing that had to happen, which often happens in those seasons or those episodes. You have a kind of big thing, and then you sort of like go down, and you go back to school, and you're doing that, and then some things start to get creepy again.

And so, you know, we were following the format with Stranger Things, and you know, our remit was that I kind of—I think was we had to go big with these things, and we went bigger. You know, every effect in Stranger Things is bigger than what we did in London. We improved on every single moment when we brought it to Broadway and added extra things into it as well. So proud of that show. So proud of that show. But in the same vein, you know, Paranormal Activity is, you know, known for being, you know, a lo-fi kind of, you know, very much a sort camera on the walls.

[20:25] Chris Fisher: Exactly, you know, naturalistic environment. You know, we're not in a world—yes, we know that there's an expectancy of Paranormal Activity, but what really we really play on is the naturalistic world of that show, which is why we designed that house to be as naturalistic as possible. So then sort of play on that and bring stuff out of it. So yeah, it's very different shows to design, but ultimately we always draw, you know, Jamie, who I've spoken about for co-design Stranger Things, you know, we always draw—we're both very alike in that we go back to our roots and we go back to other magicians' roots of, you know, magicians of the 19th, you know, late 20th, you know, 19th century, those stage magicians, Victorian magicians that use mechanics, that use slap—that, you know, they didn't have the modern technology.

And of course, you know, we do sometimes use modern technology, but it's hidden in plain sight. You know, so we try as much with our illusions to kind of keep them. It's hard because some people say, "Oh, it's just, you know, it's so easy because it's this, this, and this." It's just like, it's not, you know? Everything that goes into these things is so detailed and thought out, and there's so many layers to them. But ultimately, a lot of it you can draw back to those sort of, yeah, as I say, it's what Victorian magicians and the stage shows that they were producing back in those days.

[21:41] Chris Fisher: I love that kind of magic, you know? It's the best sometimes when you're building an illusion. For instance, at the end of Stranger Things when the girl falls down the stairs, and you know that whole thing happens, which is brilliant. It's slow motion. It's so many like a feast of the senses, especially visually. But when you're putting an illusion like that together where you need to rely on, you know, harnesses and flies and things like that, does that change? I guess the question is, was that the illusion all along, or does it have to modify when you have an actor involved that you might have to change it? Because what if the person can't do it? Or, you know, there's other things that come into play?

[22:28] Chris Fisher: Totally. I mean, that wasn't the—in this script, you know, it was Patty fell from the gantry. You know, that was what the script was. And so we, you know, Jamie and I considered a lot of different things. I mean, literally kind of like, is it an actual fall? Do you sort of fall backwards and you just see a drop to the floor? Do we switch for a dummy? And as you fall backwards, and then it's a drop to the floor, you know? And we went through so many different versions of how can we make someone fall off a gantry? And then we would—Jamie lives up in Glasgow, and we often went up to sort of just, you know, we had a drink in the evening. We were just spraff ideas. And I haven't got it here, but basically Jamie had like a spatula and a pen or—I think it was a pen and a spatula—and then we were just sort of like saying, "If that was the gantry, and we were like, what would happen?

Like if she was standing there, and then if the gantry started to fall, and then she sort of went down there and then started to move backwards and then fell off there, that could be cool, couldn't it?" And we're like, "Yes, that's what we should do. We should do it." So we went to Stephen Daugherty and Justin Martin, and we were like, "We need to go slow motion." But it's actually not as impactful falling, you know? I'd actually have to fall at hiding our crash mats and stuff like that. We love the practicality. No, we both got this with our roots. Let's play it theatrical but with a big illusion. So then, you know, after our kind of spatula and pen, we were like, "Okay, how do we realize this?"

So we went through many, many workshops. And to answer your question, you know, you're right. Once you start bringing actors in and effectively, you know, performing a big stunt, you have to think about various other things. And we did get actually a stunt director in specifically for this moment who worked with us, who was our first Patty. You know, we built, you know, we built a scaffolding to be our gantry. We had commissioned our sort of first version of what the form might be in terms of the gantry breaking. Had our stunt director in working with it, and off the back of that rehearsal, we were then able to feed back to make the next version of it. But now we need this from this; we need that from that, and we'd make the next stage of it.

And then we test that, and then we feed back to that, and we make the next stage of it. And then bit by bit, you know, and then we bring—illusions in theater pretty much rely on collaboration of every single technical department in the show to make an effect work. And certainly with that illusion in particular, every single department has something to do with that illusion. Well, it's a prop, costume, automation, lighting, sound, video. Every single—there are so many elements in that illusion to give it its final effect. And that's what's great, I think, from having a theatrical background is that you then know two things: one, you understand, you know, the restraints and understand, you know, what these guys have to do.

But also, you know what they can give you. And so you can have these ideas about what if we do this, and what if we had that in? And you know, all of those layers of cake effectively, you know, make that final big piece to make it work.

[27:11] Chris Fisher: And that's exciting, bringing younger people who just think that everything's on a flat screen in front of them, bringing them into a live environment and experiencing it and realizing this is actually really cool, you know. And it's also, you know, just folded into the story, so it's not like you're seeing a magic show.

[27:31] Eila Mell: Exactly, exactly. Which again, you know, the thing about a magic show is that you come expecting trick after trick after trick, whereas we can really play on that in that you don't know where the next thing's going to come, you know. So therefore, you know, if you play it right, that gives you so much more of like, whoa, what, you know, kind of moment.

[27:52] Chris Fisher: Yes. And especially in Paranormal Activity, it takes a while for us to see any obvious illusion anyway.

[27:57] Eila Mell: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

[27:59] Chris Fisher: Yeah, yeah, no, completely. It's, yeah, we certainly, yeah, you learn how to kind of manage an audience and pull up the strings a little bit, you know. But my audience, they were screaming just when a door slammed shut upstairs.

[28:10] Eila Mell: Which is great.

[28:11] Chris Fisher: I have a whole thing with Paranormal Activity I call a door-ography, which is, you know, there's a lot of door-ography in Paranormal Activity. And I've learned that, you know, a door opening creepily is not as easy as you think.

[28:27] Chris Fisher: Now, with Paranormal, because like you said, Stranger Things, there was an innate, you know, formula that you had to follow because of the TV show. With Paranormal, having the movies that exist, did you feel that as long as you stayed like to the core, you were fine? It feels like with those style of movies, you get you have the liberty to kind of flex the way you want a little bit more than Stranger Things.

[28:56] Eila Mell: I think people have a certain expectation that it's got to follow really true.

[29:01] Chris Fisher: Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, yeah, with Stranger Things, you know, there were characters, we had to have characters, albeit they were younger, but we had to have characters that, you know, that were known. And so you come in knowing a bit about them, albeit that they were younger, but you know, they sort of know the characters, whereas obviously with Paranormal, you know, there are new characters. And we purposely didn't, I mean, Stranger Things doesn't either. We purposely didn't try to replicate a film. And what was interesting about the Paranormal films is obviously they rely a lot on found footage. A lot of it is about found footage. And, you know, we talked early on about the found footage aspect of it.

And I think what we just realized is that, you know, in a theater, you can't, if you have like filming or screens or everything like that, you just can't see it. You know, we have a TV screen, you know, in Paranormal and we do elude a couple of little bits of that, but the screen would have to be massive to really play. And it was just like, it then becomes all about that. And it's like, this is a live theater experience. So, so yes, what we kind of draw on is the, is the kind of a couple that have been spooked, they've moved somewhere and the spirits followed. And, and we draw that aspect of Paranormal Activity and decided that, you know, it was best not to have the characters from the show.

It's, it's a new couple, um, in, in their own new story. Um, but, but it has the, the tones of it, you know, if you watch the films, you've, you know, you've got that element of it within it, but it's its own thing. And so, yes, that then does mean that opens you up to kind of doing what you want with it. Um, which is what we did. Like I said, we sat around that table and kind of like, we talked about what scares us, what what's been our biggest scares in films, you know, what's, what's been exciting for us and, and what would we want to see on stage? And what was really hard, it was funny actually, is that, um, Felix, Felix and Levi, I don't think had seen Stranger Things at that point. And they were going like, what if we did this on stage? And I was like, yeah, we did that in Stranger Things. And they were like, what if we did this though? And I was like, yeah, we did that in Stranger Things as well. It was my own worst enemy.

[31:07] Eila Mell: Yeah, you pulled out all the stops. You left yourself little room to grow.

[31:11] Chris Fisher: That's the danger of doing these shows, isn't it? It's like the next one, you've always got to keep pumping it up. But yeah, but we got that was quite funny. But we did, we've had lots of new things. Obviously, there's, there's so much stuff you can put in there into shows.

[31:27] Eila Mell: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, there's, there's so much. It's so different. Like I said before, and it's so exciting, too. I mean, it just, I saw Levi Holloway's last play on Broadway, Greyhouse, and that was scary in a very different way. And I think having the illusions just elevates it. And it gets the audience involved in a way that they can't if they're not feeling what the characters are feeling on stage.

[31:45] Chris Fisher: Yeah, totally. Do you know, it's funny, we, we sat, we all went for dinner as creatives. Shortly after Paranormal had opened and Levi had that conversation about Greyhouse. He said, man, I wish you'd been around for Greyhouse. Because there was a couple of tiny little things we said, we could have done this, we could have done this, you know. And now we're like, like, what else can we do? What's our next project? What's the next, you know, because it feels like, you know, horror on stage is really kind of, it's it's in. And we were saying, we'd be surprised if we start to see more and more in the next couple of years, because people are really enjoying being scared and being collectively scared as an ensemble, you know, like I said. So, yeah, we were able to stay on that bandwagon.

[32:28] Eila Mell: Now, when you go to see a show, if you sit down and see, I don't know, Les Mis or Paddington or The Devil Wears Prada, are you sitting there and going, well, I could do this property?

[32:41] Chris Fisher: I mean, yeah, there is a little bit of that. There is a little bit of that. Or you or you. Yeah, I know. I mean, totally. Yeah, I'd be really something if I didn't. Finally, I mean, Paddington was funny, actually, because at one point, Sonia, there was a couple of moments in Paddington that Sonia would talk to me and Jeremy about and said, oh, do you fancy coming? And nothing came about. And you know what? Paddington doesn't. Paddington is amazing. Like Broadway is going to fall in love with Paddington. We can't wait. We can't wait. It's one of the best musicals I've seen in a long time. It's incredible. And there are some shows that don't, you know, that is is a magical theatrical masterpiece.

And, you know, I mean, yes, of course, I'm kind of like, oh, we could have done that. We can do that. But but it is it is brilliant. And I mean, yeah, I always kind of think you could do a little bit of that. And even like shows, even shows that have magic and I'm like, oh, they could have done that, you know, that, you know, I shouldn't probably say that. And I'm not going to name any names of shows. But but it has been hard to turn it off.

[34:00] Chris Fisher: Like, I feel like the way your brain works and you because you've been immersed in magic your whole life, like you said, it's got to be hard not to look at something and say, you know, well, if I took out my magic wand.

[34:09] Eila Mell: Yeah, yeah, it is. I mean, it's not that we're working in theatre, I think as well. I think anyone who works in theatre, you know, you sometimes find it hard to watch a show and not think, oh, they must be in a quick change there or or I saw that move or that wasn't supposed to happen or, you know, or was that supposed to happen? And you kind of sometimes it's hard to switch off. I mean, as much as I love magic, I love theatre. So, you know, I I think I can sometimes kind of sit back and kind of I did it with Paddington. I actually really did. I just sat back and was like, this is brilliant. I got absorbed into it. Um, but yeah, generally on a whole, I mean, I've either got my theatre hat on, I've got my magic hat on and I'm thinking, oh, this is what, you know, um, but I love it when stuff like in terms of magic and when I go and see shows a lot of the time, I'm like, I know this time I know that's done.

But if there's good misdirection or things like that, and I'm, you know, I've suddenly like, whoa, someone's over there. I didn't and it was like, okay, that would have been them that happened, but I didn't catch it. That's really good. You know, yeah, I love those moments. I love it when I get caught out and someone catches me. I'm like, oh, you got me. Damn it. There's so many great moments like that in Stranger Things, too, where, you know, with doubles and, you know, just misdirection. It's so much fun. One of my favourite scenes in Stranger Things is affectionately called Scary Patty. And it's in the locker room with Henry and, you know, Patty's in there and then suddenly she turns crazy and and then suddenly, bang, we're out of it and she's back and she's normal. And you're like, whoa, what just happened? You know, I mean, not unlike something that happens in Paranormal Activity, maybe, you know. Right. But yeah, I love those moments.

[35:33] Eila Mell: Yeah, you're right. Like that. Genuinely, I kind of like I love the moment when you sort of see the audience go, well, that's almost like a double blink of the eyes, like not quite getting it.

[35:43] Chris Fisher: I know. I want to I want to go back to see Paranormal Activity just so I can watch that scene to see if I can see anything. And I probably wouldn't. I think people it's interesting because I know that some people come in like word. It's it's almost enemy a little bit when something starts to get a bit of hype because, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of people come in and now thinking they know that something's going to happen. In fact, my daughter finally saw the show a couple of weeks ago and she would be speaking about the family for ages and she knew. But even knowing that something's going to happen, you still I'd like to think I'm really proud of illusion, not just because it's getting an impact, but because actually from an elusive point of view, I think even if you know something's going to happen, the way I've designed it, it's, you know, you can look at that house before and after and then look at that during.

And still, I don't think you'd be able to work out how a little bit's done, you know, which is what I love, you know, to not be able to backtrack or just kind of think I've solved that, but I can't work out that stuff, you know?

[36:47] Eila Mell: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I feel like we've only scratched the surface, but I know that you have to go. So listen, you must come back another time. We would love to talk to you when your next show comes out. That's 222. Is that what's coming up next for you?

[36:58] Chris Fisher: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when is that? 222 is happening in October, the Lucille Hotel.

[37:06] Eila Mell: Okay. Well, hopefully you'll want to come back and talk to us about that. Is there anything else on the horizon after that, that you are able to speak of?

[37:16] Chris Fisher: I mean, not on the horizon officially. I mean, we, I've just did Black Swan at the, at the AFG, which was really successful. We're really proud of it. I haven't heard words yet, but you know, I know like, you know, as a, as a collective, you know, we'd love for Black Swan to have a future life. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that one because I'd love more people to see it. That's again, I mean, there was a lot of our stuff in it, but that had its kind of own kind of scariness as well. And, you know, and the dancing, I mean, yeah, I'm working with Sonia Tayar, like incredible, incredible people. So that would be, you know, certainly nothing official or anything like that and nothing will be told about, but I would love it if, if, if that was to come of something.

But, and then I've got other shows here in the UK happening, it's just been announced to do Nanny McPhee in the West End next summer, which is, which is going to be great. So hopefully that would make it across the pond at some point, who knows?

[38:07] Eila Mell: Well, yeah. Well, we hope so too. Well, I mean, thank you so much. You and Jamie, you guys are changing what we expect on Broadway. You have raised the bar.

[38:18] Chris Fisher: Well, thank you.

[38:19] Eila Mell: Absolutely. Thanks for speaking to me.

[38:21] Chris Fisher: Oh my gosh. It was our absolute joy and we'll see everyone next time on Behind the Awards. Bye-bye.