We recently talked with director Rob Reiner at a roundtable interview in Boston, and of all the things he had to say, what struck me most was: “[studios] wouldn’t make any of the pictures I’ve made, and they don’t make any of the ones I’m about to, you know, making now.”

I thought Rob Reiner’s films were mostly a studio’s kinda thing, you know? I mean, the man directed Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally and The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride for God sakes! You’d think studios would say “YES” to these things. I guess that even if you’ve made at least three great (and now classic) films, things just don’t get that much easier when it comes to selling the bosses on your next project.

And So It Goes … is Mr. Reiner’s latest film. Click here for the official site and to check out the trailer.

Participating in our roundtable discussion about the making of And So It Goes was fellow Boston Online Film Critics Association member and frequent podcast guest Brett Michel.

For the coolness of it, and because it’s featured in the movie and is an integral part of its tone, here’s Judy Collins and The Boston Pops performing “Both Sides Now.”

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STEPHEN SLAUGHTER HEAD: Can I ask you a question about … I’ll phrase it this way … maybe it’s about getting older. Does it get easier to direct?

ROB REINER: Yes. It does get easier in that you don’t spend your time doing things that are not essential. You learn what’s important, what’s not important, and you don’t spin your wheels in areas that are not important. So it does get easier from that standpoint. The hard part is that you’re older, so it’s physically taxing. But you learn where you need to spend your energy and not. I watched last night, I don’t know if you watch the NBA Finals, but you look at Tim Duncan. The guy is 38 years-old. I mean, that’s an old guy for a basketball player, and he played the whole season. But you watch the way he plays, and he can put in a lot of minutes, but he got the most out of the minute he played. So even if he’s only playing 20-minutes, he’s still scoring his 15 points because he knows what he needs to do, and so that’s the part that becomes a little easier.

HEAD: Would you say that it’s like you become better at delegating things? You know where you don’t need to waste your time?

REINER: Yes, you learn. You know, what I’ve always said is, when you’re making a movie, especially movies I make, that the studios would never make – I mean, they wouldn’t make any of the pictures I’ve made, and they don’t make any of the ones I’m about to, you know, making now – you have limited budgets, you have limited amounts of time, and so you learn that there are certain things that are not essential that you can lose. But you never cut into a vital organ though, never! Then you’ve destroyed your project. But you do learn how to delegate. There are certain things that are really important and there are certain things that are not as important, and you can let them go. But when you’re young, you’re just hopped-up by everything – every little thing. You know, I learned, and I learned as they went along.

There’s a great moment in … it’s a Truffaut film. It’s called Day for Night and it’s all about movie-making. And a guy comes up to [Truffaut] and says, “Do you want the red cup or the blue cup?” And you can agonize over that, you know? And then you [think] … You know something? In the scheme of this picture it’s not going to matter that much. Yeah, there’s probably a better choice. But if you agonize over that and spin your wheels over that you’re going to lose a bigger picture.

HEAD: Steven Soderbergh said that as he’s progressed in the business, the people he’s working with, the people he’s going to get permissions to [make a film] are now more like his fans and admirers as opposed to colleagues. Is this a similar experience for you now?

REINER: Well, yeah, because the people who are running either the movie companies or the TV … they’re younger, they’re all younger by virtue, by definition they have to be because you can’t run these companies without that energy, unless you’re my friend Alan Horn. He is the only guy I know that has the energy to be able to do it.

So yeah, there’s always people that will look at you like, “Oh, I grew up on your movies!” And basically what you want to say is, “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.” I mean, you want them to just basically accept and know that you have experience, and certainly you know how to do the things you have experienced that you’re going to bring [your movie] in on time and on budget and it’s all going to work. But you know, judge this thing for what it is. I mean, what the script is. Is this something you’re interested in? You don’t want to be making a movie just because you’re a fan. You want to be making it because it’s something you feel that’s going to work for your company or your outlet. So you know, I think it’s a double-edge sword here.

HEAD: Has it made you feel less comfortable?

REINER: No, because you know it’s nice when people say, “I love your work” and “I grew up in your films” and others quoting your lines. I mean, that’s really nice. It makes you feel good, you know, that you’ve actually done things that touch people; that are substate with them or whatever. So that parts good.

BRETT MICHEL: You must have a pretty dedicated crew that you work with at this point though.

REINER: Well, I used to have the same crew all the time when I made pictures in Los Angeles, but I can’t make pictures in Los Angeles anymore because they’re too expensive to. You don’t get a tax break, so I’ve had to go where, you know, the tax breaks are. I made a picture Michigan, I made one New York, now I’ve made one in Connecticut.

Now, the last two pictures I did, I made with the same [director of photography]. I was lucky to get the same DP. And I love her, you know, so I’m hoping I can work with her, but…

MICHEL: Did you shoot with the Alexa [camera]?

REINER: Yeah, I love that. You know I love all the digital stuff. I’m not like old-school, we have to be … There’s no film anymore anyway. You know, Kodak’s out of business and all that stuff. I’m not one of those people that says, “It has to be on film.”

MICHEL: But do you miss film?

REINER: Do I miss film? You know, I don’t. To me, I’m a storyteller. I came at this as an actor and writer and a storyteller. To me it’s about telling a story. I’m not a cinematographer or a film guy. I didn’t go to film school where all of those things are important, you know. But I want to just tell a story, and whatever the tools are there, are to tell a story, that’s what I’ll use, you know?

And I love the Avid [editing system]. When I started working, I would work on a moviola, which is an upright thing, and then I went to the cam and then to the Avid. but I love the Avid because you can see right away if you’ve made a good decision. You can undo it and then redo it. You know, when you shoot it and [edit] it on the cutting bench you’ve got to take the real down you’ve got to redo it and it takes forever.

MICHEL: Well, [with digital photography] you’ll be able to get a lot more shots done during the day.

REINER: You can. I mean, it’s not that much quicker in terms of lighting. It’s not that much quicker.

MICHEL: But you don’t have to load [the camera with film].

REINER: No, you don’t have to load, you can run a take over and over. You don’t have to worry about the film running out and having to reload.

JOURNALIST: Kind of following up on that a little bit, I was really fascinated by the opening tracking shot of the film. Did you get a copter for that?

REINER: It’s a drone. That’s the only way to do a shot like that, because with a helicopter … first of all, you can’t get close enough on the streets, and the blades and rotors would make everything flop in the wind. You couldn’t get that close. And a crane would never follow that. So it’s a little drone. You know, you’ve seen them. It’s done remotely and they mount a camera on it

MICHEL: How big is the camera for that? That wouldn’t have been the Alexa.

REINER: No, it’s a small camera. It’s a very small camera that you can load on there. And you know, we did [the shot] a number of times. You pick the location where you want, where you’re going to go from here to there, and it’s a design thing. You have to really design it. And the shot that we used, the one that’s in the film … the drone crashed. We took every frame of it until it flew down and hit the ground.

MICHEL: You didn’t have to [edit] anything together?

REINER: No, because it’s only one shot. There’s no cuts. There’s no cutaway.

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And So It Goes opens nationwide July 18th.