Making Magic: transcript of the documentary on the Practical Magic DVD.

~ Lisa Johnstone ~

Griffin Dunne (Director): Camera! Action!

Dunne sits, surrounded by various members of the crew, outside the Owen's house. We see a crane camera swoop down towards the cast, ready to do their stuff, as the opening title appears: 'Making Magic'

Dunne: Aaaaction!

Scene from the film: Jet, Franny, Young Sally and Young Gillian sit around a table outside the house.

Aunt Jet: (VO) Sally. (On screen) Let's go inside and do some spells.

Young Sally: (Smiling despite herself) What about my homework?

[The camera changes to another POV and pulls back, allowing us to see the crew filming and following the action as:]

Aunt Frances: (Gets up from the table) Oh, pish! Tosh! You're both going to learn things in this house that you will never learn in school. Let's go. (The other three rise too)

Young Sally: (Running ahead) Come on, Gilly!

Young Gillian: I'm coming, Sally!

[Cut to interview with Alice Hoffman.]

Hoffman: Every book comes to me like a dream. So, in this book, there were these two sisters that suddenly appeared to me. [Various shot of Young Sally and Young Gillian: on the balcony of their house as Sally completes the 'AmasVeritas' love spell; the two skipping and running in the front yard; Young Sally lighting a candle by blowing on the wick] And they were exact opposites of each other. They came from a very strange New England family.

Scene from the film: the four witches in the dining room, Sally having just lit the candle.

Aunt Jet: Very good, Sally. You know, you've been blessed with a gift.

Young Gillian: (Crouching barefoot on the table beside Jet, wearing fairy wings) What about me?

Aunt Frances: Oh. we don't worry about you, Gillybean. Your talents will emerge in time.

[Cut to interview with Dianne Wiest, still in costume.]

Wiest (Aunt Jet): More than outsiders, I think we're really feared and hated. It's not just somebody you don't wanna socialize with - people literally cross the street when we come down.

Scene from film: Jet, Frances and Sally walk down the street in town.

Aunt Jet: (To a mother and her small child passing them on the street) Hello. Hello, darling, how are you? (The mother turns the daughter’s face away and shields her protectively as they move past)

Mother: Cover your eyes, cover your eyes.

Aunt Frances: Oh, Jet, just give it up.

Aunt Jet: (Mischievously) Never.

[Interview with Stockard Channing:]

Stockard Channing (Aunt Francis): These three generations of women all have capacity for magic. That's part of our heritage. And Sandy [Bullock] plays somebody who really doesn't, even though she has very magical powers, doesn't want to have them. She wants to be normal.

Scene from film [cont.]:

Aunt Frances: My darling girl, when are you going to understand that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.

Sally: Well, it's what I want.

Aunt Jet: (Pointing at a passing 20-something couple, who look nervous and pick up their pace) You see this couple here?

[Alice Hoffman's VO begins here]

Hoffman: And so for me writing the book was the discovery of what the family what like [cut to Hoffman] and what the relationship between the sisters was like.

Scene from film: Gillian and Sally sharing a moment before Gillian runs away from home with her boyfriend.

Sally: I feel like I'm never going to see you again.

Gillian: (Reassuring) Of course you're gonna see me again! We're gonna grow old together. It's gonna be you and me. [Scene is cut here and Di Novi's VO begins]

Denise Di Novi (Producer): Alice Hoffman is one of my favourite novelists. She has a great way of mixing the surreal and the real, and integrating magic into daily common life.

Scene from film: Jet and Francis have previously been talking to Kylie and Antonia (Sally's daughters) about witchcraft. Sally enters.

Sally: (Standing in the kitchen doorway) What's going on in here?

Aunt Jet: (Calmly) Nothing. Just making toast, is all. (She looks pointedly at the toaster, and two nicely done witchcraft-induced slices pop up on cue.)

[Cut to]

Di Novi: I love that aspect of the book. And then when Robin Swicord wrote the first draft of the screenplay, I really saw how it could be a great movie.

[Cut to]

Dunne: [On location] The movie, you know, when I first read it, I thought it just ... visually it was so challenging. [Shots of Sally and Gillian as they finally banish Jimmy's spirit; Gillian laughing delightedly at Sally and Gary's embrace; Sally kissing her first husband, Michael] It was literally like a cauldron with every single emotion and theme and ingredient you could imagine. So I thought, you know, let's dive in and try to do it. It's got a lot going on.

[Shots of Griffin Dunne talking and fooling around with Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing as they, and various crew members set up and prepare for the 'Midnight Margaritas' scene]

Di Novi: Griffin Dunne has had so many years of experience - as an actor, as a producer. He understands the process so well. You see him working with the actors, and you see the incredible chemistry he has with them, almost like actors have with each other.

[More behind the scenes filming of the Margaritas scene: Nicole Kidman and Griffin Dunne stand on one side of the big kitchen table, Sandra Bullock and another crew member on the other. Kidman is discussing her dialogue with Dunne]

Nicole Kidman (Gillian): Or should I just say [forcefully] 'Move!' here?

Sandra Bullock (Sally): [Teasingly] Say that again - [mimicking Kidman's tough tone] 'Move!'

Dunne: [To Kidman] No, I want you to start here. [turns to Bullock, plants his hands on the table, leans forward and yells, like the moo of a cow] Mooove!

[Bullock slaps the table and laughs]

[Cut to interview with Sandra Bullock, by a lakeside on location.]

Bullock: [smiling] Insane. Mental instability. One of the funniest human beings ever to set foot on this planet. [re: Dunne]

[Cut to: on set, Dunne, Bullock and Aiden Quinn, in the conservatory.]

Dunne: [to Bullock, gazing at her lovingly] Look at me. It's like I'm looking at you with affection. There's no affection at all, okay. [Bullock and Quinn burst out laughing]

[Cut to Kidman, somewhere on set, in Gillian costume, but wearing a huge bomber jacket]

Kidman: It's fun working with a director that has a sense of the ridiculous and a sense of the macabre.

[Dunne and Goran Visnjic (Jimmy Angelov) are on location by the swimming pool where we first see Jimmy. They are discussing a scene which was later cut from the movie.]

Dunne: You know when you catch a poisonous snake, and you do it to impress the ladies? Uh ... you know they're listening.

[Cut to]

Bullock: The fact that he [Dunne] was an actor for so many years, and grew up in such a creative family, he just - he has instincts and intuitions [Shot of Dunne and Aiden Quinn in the conservatory, Bullock in the background, as they discuss the scene] that I've never been around in my life.

[Cut to interview with Aiden Quinn, on location]

It's rare that, as an actor, you just feel completely at ease, that the director is for you ... completely. [Shot of Dunne crouching beside a camera, grinning enthusiasically as he watches the actors do their scene] And that you can kind of do anything, go out there on a limb and try something, and he'll be extremely supportive of the impulse.

[Cut to]

Kidman: Griffin is famous for the way he watches scenes, because he acts them out himself. He'll hate me saying that, but he does! [laughs]

[Shot of Dunne avidly watching Bullock and Quinn act their scene in the conservatory. His face twitches as he 'acts' with them:

Sally: (OS) I guess you've figured me out, huh?

Gary: (OS) I guess so.

Sally: (OS) Yeah.

The camera switches to one 'filming the filming', and we see Sally and Gary facing one another.

Sally: Come round on Halloween. You'd really see something.

[Cut to interview with Goran Visnjic, on location by the swimming pool]

Visnjic: He'll probably kills me because of this, but you know, when he watch monitor, you know, he's always [Pulls a series of frantic facial expressions, imitating Dunne] you know, acting together with us. [Shot of Dunne in the conservatory, pulling faces and pointing as the actors do the same. Only better.] That's so good because when you see him, you know, it's so easy for you to play. He's always on the set like [bobs around energetically] full of energy. Always in good mood, you know, and it's - I like it.

[Cut to]

Dunne: Well, I have been in a practically ridiculous good mood making it. [Shot of Dunne back in the conservatory, laughing delightedly. He calls 'Cut!' and, still smiling, gets up from his chair]

Di Novi: The title itself, 'Practical Magic', really says it all for me. It's about how magic is present in every day life [Shot of Sally examining the her hand - the scar when Gillian cut their palms as teenagers] and every moment if we're just aware of it.

Scene from film:

Sally: (Wistfully) Gilly.

Fade to Gillian, miles away, also lying down, studying the scar on her right hand.

Gillian: Sally.

[Cut to]

Kidman: (VO) There can be that strange connection where you sense something's wrong [Cut to interview with Kidman] with somebody, from, you know, a thousand miles away or across the other side of the world.

Scene from film:

Sally stands by the front gate of the house, watching the moon.

As she begins her walk back to the house, the phone inside rings. Sally looks stricken, and starts to run.

Sally: Gillian.

As she reaches it, Jet is on her way down the stairs.

Aunt Jet: It's Gillian.

Sally: (to Jet) I know. (She yanks the handset off the wall and speaks into it) What's wrong?

[Cut to]

Bullock: You call something who's 3000 miles away and say 'You know, I was singing this song today.' And they're like, 'Oh my God, it's the same exact song I was playing and I was thinking of you.' [Shot of Sally letting go of a leaf which twirls up into the night sky] How do you explain those things where you can walk into a room and instantly fall in love with a person across the room and you've never met them before, but you've known them in some other way. [Shot of Gary looking up, as if hearing a faraway call] It's all those practical little ways that we sort of negate all the time, but we use instinctually. [Gary walking towards the Owen's house, Sally emerges to meet him.]

Dunne: (VO) It's no different than that kind of magic when you're in love with someone and you know what they're going to say before they say it. [Sally and Gary move towards each other] You know, it's again, this practical approach to these kind of extraordinary things [cut to Dunne] that really are all around us.

[Cut to]

Di Novi: We sort of don't like to analyze it too much, but they are magical and they're a gift that have been given to us, and the movie celebrates that.

[Cut to]

Hoffman: Partially it's magic and partially it's everyday miracles, and I think the biggest miracle of all is falling in love. [Shot of Sally and Gary embracing]