How did you get into making movies?
When I was a kid, my brother and I would make believe that we were shooting films. We'd set up Jiffy peanut butter jars as lights--they used to be shiny and looked like movie lights. But we never filmed them.
When I was in high school, the only director I knew about was Hitchcock. When I learned that he had actually planned all those shots, I started watching his movies with a very different eye. I started imagining the "behind-the-scenes" of movies that I'd go see.
How do you do what you do? Describe your process.
As a director, you have to look at a film from the point of view of each person you talk to. So if I am talking to the production designer, we only talk about what we're seeing in the frame, whether it's the colors or layout of a scene. If I'm talking to the actors, it's only about the intention that's running beneath the movie.
Also, I usually spend about two years of my life on a movie, so the most important thing is that the characters are people I want to be with, and the world they live in is a place I want to visit.
How many people are involved in the films you make?
Close to a hundred. I don't work individually with everybody, but I definitely set a tone. I feel like I'm the matriarch.
What do you like/dislike most about your job?
I hate looking for money. Investors want to know if the product will be sellable. But it's not like you make cars and you can show them a model. A screenplay doesn't do it. There's no way to express what's inside your head. It's almost like selling air.
What was high school like? Were you into filmmaking?
My senior year I took a course called "History of the Movies." I learned that there was actually somebody responsible for all that stuff in movies that it looked like just happened. That got me really excited because as much as I admired actors, acting wasn't something I was interested in doing. Yet I wanted to be close to that process.
I loved music and writing, too, but I wasn't particularly good at them. In that class, I learned that directing is about being the best appreciator of all the stuff I loved, and creating your own thing out of all these different elements. It's like cooking: You get the best ingredients, put it all together and serve it up.
What other kinds of things do you do? What else would you like to try?
They always seem to be connected to film in one way or another. I'm just really interested in what I can do with movies.
Where can we find out more your work?
