Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1124770
30 CINEMONTAGE / Q2 2019 CM: Is this the first editing suite you decked out? SWR: I once built an Italian restaurant in my cutting room at Sony when I worked on Rango [2011]. I got two little tables and some chairs and put that fake brick up on the wall — not a paper backdrop, but the brick siding you get in a lumber yard, and added a couple of Dean Martin posters. People loved to come in there to eat their lunch, and we'd talk in my little Italian restaurant. Honestly, I feel that if you're comfortable and de-stressed, you work better and people like to come to your room and enjoy hanging out. CM: Where did the idea come from to begin dressing up your workspace? SWR: I think I got this from my dad, a dentist/hot tub salesman/ landscaper. Growing up, I'd go to his dental office, where he built an Asian garden outside his exam room windows, including footbridges, landscaping and a floor-to-ceiling birdcage that separated the interior from the exterior where his clients could look out over the landscape. Thinking that his clients would feel more relaxed in this setting, Dad would develop these full-size dioramas for effect. In the waiting room, he built into the wall a sliced- in-half hot tub, where he placed books, toys and curiosities for the children who visited.