Special effects appear in almost every film nowadays. In 1994 when you wrote the screenplay to The Mask, how conscious were you of special effects and how integral they would be, given the story?

Well, I love summer popcorn films and those generally involve VFX in some form or another. Raiders of the Lost Ark was the film that made me want to get into the business. But while writing The Mask, I was less concerned with writing an “effects” film than making sure this (simple) story stood on its own. As opposed to Face/Off which took untold drafts and six years from original idea to production, I wrote my first draft of The Mask in less than six weeks. And less than two months later it was green-lit. Of course, that film is based on the great Dark Horse comix — so it wasn’t like I was starting from scratch (although, if you are familiar, there are huge differences in the leap from book to screen).

My intention was to write a screenplay that would work first as a story — and then fold the effects as seamlessly as possible into that story, not the other way around. As I said, it’s a simple story: a lonely, oppressed, but good-hearted bank teller has to become someone else in order to learn who he really is.

Of course, I was aware that certain things could not be done practically — like having an actor place a prop against his face and turn into a tornado — but that didn’t affect the writing in any way. There were a lot of VFX scenes that had to be cut for budget. I’m just happy that Milo the Dog wasn’t cut — because that character was not in the comic — and the dog really helped the climax. The director (Chuck Russell) told me the folks at ILM were fighting over who got to animate the dog. That’s about the highest compliment a writer can get.

FX supervisors and stunt coordinators are very important to action movies now. Looking at special effects and action sequences, how much collaboration takes place between the writer, director, and stunt people with regard to the balance required between the efforts and logistics to making a kick ass scene?

It completely depends on the director. Most don’t want the writers around — and what’s shot is sometimes quite different than what’s on the page. With Face/Off it was very collaborative. Michael Colleary and I worked intimately with Mr. Woo - and sometimes the storyboard artist - on most of the action sequences. But to give credit where it’s due: Woo is the master — and he was an endless fountain of exciting, new ideas. For example, the scene where the speedboat flies through the exploding police vessel was totally Woo’s idea. And that’s one of the most iconic action beats in the film. We also spent a lot of time working with our production designer, Neil Spisak – especially on the prison stuff.