And I think that digging into that relationship and digging into the kind of family relationships and the picture of someone perhaps going through a kind of terrible kind of period of mental illness, I think getting that right is was was the important thing for me and all of these other trappings on top of it were um uh you know uh you know we're kind of uh extra extra fun touches uh basically so it's getting the characters right and i think they'll that leads you through whatever else you're doing with the story

And I would just say from a execution point of view, there were so many wonderful challenges on this.

It's a non-linear story.

And so we needed to figure out how we were going to set up certain things that were going to not pay off until much later in the story.

And you seem very observant, so you probably noticed that there's certain shots in the pilot where you might think it's an objective angle, and it turns out later you find out it's actually somebody's point of view.

We also wanted to set up a sense of paranoia or voyeurism in it.

Is there somebody watching? Is it you from another reality? Am I going crazy? And these are things that we wanted to layer into the show.

And a ghost story in space, I think, is really exciting.

Bryan Cranston, Walt.

Michelle MacLaren, I'm, uh, one of the executive producers and I directed this episode.

That's, that's right.

I'm okay.

I, uh, Todd, I think I might have another job.

It's a very intimate scene.

This is, this is such a funny moment in this scene when, uh, he's telling the, the train robbery, and, uh, and he says like, uh, uh, Kevin says that reference to the movie.

... to the roles.

Wh- which speaks to, y- you know, if you get a part with a, a s- a small part, and on Breaking Bad, you never know whether that can turn into-

Mm-hmm.

And, um, uh, it was definitely an incredibly emotional scene for you.

And so what I often do is I talk to the actors ahead of time and I say, "Would you like to go first or second?" And, and it just really depends on the individual.

Anna, you quite often like to go first because you're, you're, you come in very prepared and, and, and m- emotionally and as, as well as obviously knowing your lines and everything.

And, um, so once you get your side out-

That's for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's cool.

It's, you, you guys write very visually and it, it, it inspires us visually on, on how to shoot it, and that's a really, that...

You feel very fortunate to direct these guys.

He still has that, "Come on."

Bryan, when you're directing and acting, you know, you take a scene like this, and you're in, in the moment, and you're, you're looking at Jesse as you're acting.

Are you ever thinking in your head what the camera is seeing? Is it hard to, to do the both?

this?Craziness?

Well, I think, I think-- Yeah, I mean, you, you kinda covered it in that it's, it was one jail, and we had to, you know, do it as three different jails in one day, except for the, the fire part.

Um, so it had to be all, uh, pre-planned and, and yeah, obviously, it always is pre-planned.

But the art department did an amazing job, and we picked different rooms, and we painted d- them different colors.

And wardrobe did an amazing job with picking the, the different uniforms, and, uh, we had to plan out which-

I think in, at some point in this, they say that there's, like, it's been three months or something.

Yeah, purposefully.

That was, we were trying, we needed a passage of time, which we, uh, were showing in the meth kingdom, empire building montage.

And, uh, talk about this, uh, where we are here, Michelle.

Well, we're supposedly in Germany, but we're actually in a local Albuquerque high school.

This was a very hard location to find, because we wanted to have a completely different look than our regular, uh, Breaking Bad look.

And our wonderful locations department, uh, they found this school that was very new, and, um, this was a cooking part of the school that had, has not yet opened.

So everything was very pristine, and it was kinda perfect for us.

And we walked in and, and actually, Vince, if you remember, this was written as, originally as a boardroom.

And we had-

[laughs]

Yeah.

And, uh, this shot coming up, I actually, uh, was...

We were right under, right by the camera, uh, when it flies overhead, and, uh, well, it's coming up in a few minutes.

Now, this was interesting because we, um, were gonna shoot this in the air so that we, we could see outside rather than do a green screen, and the wind picked up, and we couldn't get off the ground at the last minute, so this was all done poor man's process at a local airport, and, uh, it, it looks amazing.

It, it, I think it plays perfectly, so it-

Well, you know, it's, it's, all the episodes have to come in at a certain time.

And, uh, and, and depending on how, uh, long the scripts are and how we, uh, the scenes, you know, how they're shot and, and how the performances happen, the...

Of course, our first editor's cut assembly can be a different length, and, and sometimes we have to cut out gems.

Uh, uh, ex- explain that ladies, about the, uh, about the fact that the, this in very important, uh, location coming up did not exist by the time we shot here.

Ugh.

It was, that was, that was a challenge 'cause we found out, um, in episode seven, I think it was, that, uh, they were gonna tear down the chicken farm.

And so you guys let us know what was, what we were gonna need, and, uh, Stu Lyons actually, uh, with Nelson Craig, um, so I guess it was during episode five then-

Yeah, evil devil.

Um, block shooting is when you will shoot more than one scene in a particular direction before turning around.

So if you're in a location that it makes sense, we don't really like to do it very often because it's very hard on the actors, but if it makes sense, um, to shoot half of one scene looking one direct-

At first I was lobbying to keep it the way it was, but it, it really turned out great having the separate Walt, uh, montages coming up.

You know, our, our locations department did a great job here, because we needed to make it feel like these guys were covering a lot of the state in one day.

And, um, this is actually near the, uh, Hank's house location, and we're up in the mountains.

Uh, but we're really only just behind the, um, the Schrader house.

So what time is this? Like, this is literally like could be 4:00 in the morning or something like that.

Well, no, this was, this was earlier in the night.

What took so long was the actual crash that's gonna come up, um, 'cause you know, we wanna be safe.

But we, we ended up, when, when Jesse, uh, leans over and starts the car and drives backwards, we put a racing seat in the driver's seat and a stuntman down, um, in that seat below the, the dash, and then we built the seat around him so he disappeared into the seat, and he drives backwards with, by using the side mirrors.

And George

... yes, that's right.

We, uh, we actually had to shut down production because it, the weather was so bad.

And, uh, we were shooting, uh, with, um...

See those speakers, the b- large speakers on the right there? We were shooting with those the next day or the day after, and we needed to be able to see the speakers move, um, and, 'cause the sound was so loud, and we were having a really big problem doing it.

And because we shut down for weather, George and I were able to get to this stereo shop with Werner, and we met this young guy who came up with an idea, uh, for sound...

They, I guess they test speakers with a sound program that, that we actually don't hear because of the pitch or something, but it's really, really loud.

No.

That's, uh, in my legal opinion

... he's very passionate and he's very serious about his craft, and he likes to rehearse a lot, uh, not, um, necessarily on the set.

He runs his lines a lot off the set.

And, um, he's really into to, uh, making sure that he hits the Saul character, um, in the right way.

He's, um, he's very committed.

And he's a pleasure.

[laughs]

You know, Brian and Aaron, I admire you guys so much for these scenes because y- this is all made up stuff.