Top quotes from 'Making of Jane' event with director Brett Morgen

No. 5: 'He said, "I don't know if you can tell but I'm sort of falling in love with Jane." I said, "No, I can tell, and it's awesome."'

"Jane" director Brett Morgen discusses the making of his acclaimed documentary at Formosa Group in Hollywood on Tuesday, August 7, 2018. Photo by Matt Carey

Brett Morgen's documentary Jane has earned a slew of awards, from the Cinema Eye Honors to the National Board of Review, and now finds itself in the running for seven Primetime Emmy Awards. But that doesn't mean it was a hoot to make.

​"This was one of the most frustrating, difficult, challenging, joyless experiences," Morgen confided to an audience of documentary enthusiasts in Hollywood last week, only half-joking. Or a quarter-joking. Or perhaps not joking at all. "Nobody had fun, but I think at the end of the day we're happy that we got through it."

With Jane we really wanted to make you feel that things were happening all around you, that you were in the middle of it.
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--Director Brett Morgen

The "Making of Jane" discussion was held at Formosa Group, a post-production sound house, in the very room where Morgen mixed the film. Running the risk of triggering a PTSD episode, he recounted the immense hurdles that had to be overcome to complete the documentary about primatologist and conversationist Jane Goodall.  

The challenges began with the source material: 140 hours of Goodall in the field in Gombe, Tanzania in the 1960s, conducting research on wild chimpanzees. The footage, originally shot for National Geographic, was thought to be lost forever, but was recently rediscovered after sitting undisturbed in a vault for more than 50 years.

The footage had no audio, typical of film shot remotely in those days. Morgen expected that going in, but the next problem came without warning: the film NatGeo sent him turned out to be totally jumbled, with no shots in sequence.

Quote No. 1:
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We go, 'Ohmygod. How are we going to make this film? You can't do this!'

--Director Brett Morgen on receiving 140 hours of jumbled footage

Morgen said he and editor Joe Beshenkovsky felt panic after discovering the archival trove was a complete mess.

"We had to shut down editorial for three or four months for the assistant editors to get things ready for Joe and I to screen," he explained. Once the assistants had separated the footage into a logical order -- shots of insects in one bin; shots of Jane in another; shots of chimps in another, etc. -- production could resume.

Then came the next challenge.

"We did 250 hours of color grading to make the film look that colorful and to be that vibrant," Morgen explained. "It didn't have scratches but some of the color had deteriorated so we had to rebuild it."

Quote No. 2:

Our goal with the film was to create a fully immersive experience. To do that we knew from the get-go that sound would play a critical role.

--Director Brett Morgen on the making of Jane

Morgen said his team spent an extraordinary length of time -- two years -- building the film's soundscape from scratch. Because the source material was silent, every sound the audience hears -- leaves rustling, Jane's footfalls on the jungle floor, chimps screeching and hooting, insects buzzing -- had to be assembled. 

Much of that challenge fell to Joshua Paul Johnson, one of the members of the sound editing crew who find their work recognized with an Emmy nomination. Johnson was fresh out of USC Film School.

Quote No. 3:
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We set him up in our office and we said, 'You are about to become the world's leading authority on chimp vocalization.'

--Director Brett Morgen, on sound editor Joshua Paul Johnson

"My only criteria was he knew how to use Pro Tools," Morgen said of Johnson.

The sound editor participated in the "Making of Jane" discussion, and shared his recollection of the hiring process.

"I showed up for the interview and I really didn't know what I was signing myself up for," Johnson confided. "It was like, 'Okay, chimpanzees, well I guess I'll figure this out as we go.' I really didn't know where to start. I contacted primatologists from all across the country and got thousands and thousands of amateur sound recordings from chimpanzees in the wild. And I was specifically looking for primatologists who had worked in Gombe... I was really obsessed with just trying to make sure everything was as accurate as possible." ​

Sound editor Joshua Paul Johnson in the room at Formosa Group where he worked on the documentary "Jane." Hollywood, August 7, 2018. Photo by Matt Carey

Johnson continued, "I ended up getting Jane Goodall's textbook essentially that she had written in the 80s and really devoured learning about [chimp] behaviors, and what each of the calls mean."

He said matching the appropriate audio of chimps to the visuals took quite an effort. "It really felt like cutting ADR in a language you don't speak." 

Quote No. 4:
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 I just never got fired.

--Sound editor Joshua Paul Johnson, on his time working on Jane

Morgen described Johnson as a "genius." But the young sound editor said he didn't approach work on Jane feeling he had much job security.

"{Brett] just kind of took a chance on me and every day I was kind of thinking, 'Well, I don't know how long I'll be working on this. But I'm going to give it my all.' And I just never got fired."

Director Brett Morgen takes part in a "Making of Jane" discussion about his Emmy-nominated documentary. Behind him is sound editor Joshua Paul Johnson. Hollywood, August 7, 2018. Photo by Matt Carey

Morgen enlisted renowned composer Philip Glass to write an original score for Jane.

"The original intent with the film -- there wasn't going to be any narration either. It was just going to be sound design and music, [but] narratively that didn't go too far," Morgen confessed.

He said Glass knew very little about Goodall before Morgen approached him. But when the director got the first music cues back from Glass, he was ecstatic. 

"I was blown away. It was so romantic," Morgen recalled.

Quote No. 5:
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[Philip] said, 'I don't know if you can tell but I'm sort of falling in love with Jane.' I said, 'No, I can tell, and it's awesome.'

--Director Brett Morgen on composer Philip Glass

If the first five cues were a delight to Morgen's ears, the remaining ones required some fine tuning before he was fully satisfied.

"Cues six through 38 took another six months [to complete] and probably went through 40 different iterations," he noted. "And Philip wanted to kill me by the time it was over."

Director Brett Morgen (right) at a reception following a "Making of Jane" discussion at Formosa Group in Hollywood. August 7, 2018. Photo by Matt Carey

Morgen revealed his intention was to title the documentary In the Shadow of Man, derived from the name of Goodall's book published in 1971, in which she detailed her research. But NatGeo wanted the film to be called Jane.

Quote No. 6:
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I was so upset we had to change it from that, because it would sort of be the perfect double-entendre.

--Director Brett Morgen on changing the title of his documentary from In the Shadow of Man to Jane

"When Jane wrote the book she obviously was referring to the chimpanzees but I was kind of in my [mind] thinking of her being in the shadow of men and then stepping out of this shadow," Morgen commented. "I was so upset we had to change it from [In the Shadow of Man] because it would sort of be the perfect double-entendre."
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Jane Goodall in the field in Gombe, Tanzania. Photo courtesy National Geographic

Voting on the Emmy nominations began Monday and extends through August 27. Morgen previously told Nonfictionfilm.com he's not had the best of luck at this awards show.

"I have a terrible track record at the Emmys, I am currently 0-21 with my movies," he told us. The day tends to be very long... Going 0-7 on [Cobain: Montage of Heck] definitely created an incredibly long weekend."

Will Morgen's efforts on Jane be crowned with Emmy success? The answer will come at the Creative Arts Awards on Saturday, September 8, where Emmys in documentary categories will be handed out.

Director Brett Morgen discusses the making of his documentary "Jane" at the headquarters of post-production sound house Formosa Group. Hollywood, August 7, 2018. Photo by Matt Carey