SEAN BAKER

The iPhone in conjunction with the Filmic Pro app - the resolution is HD quality.

My one hope for Netflix and Amazon is to be a little more art house- and indie-friendly, pushing those just as hard as they push their originals.

Somebody who doesn't understand my directing style could be pretty taken aback by it if I start going off the schedule and focusing on something because I'm inspired in the moment.

I grew up torturing friends and family by making super-8 and VHS epics.

When you see bad acting, that's usually what it is - they're not listening to the other characters. It's always hard with first-time actors to get them in that moment where they are really listening to the other characters and reacting to the other characters.

When I see a billboard that literally just has five names, and they're all A-listers, I'm just like, What is that bringing to the world that's new?

I like hearing from everybody and not just my co-screenwriters or producers. For example, while on set, I find it valuable to turn to my PA and ask, 'What do you think? Is this scene working? Do you like what you see? You got any ideas for that line there because that idea isn't working for me.'

I cannot stand Hollywood child performances. It just reeks of artifice, and it's weird that, for some reason, Hollywood feels they have to make their child characters smarter than adults, and suddenly kids have the vocabulary of a college grad.

'Greg the Bunny,' the comedy television show that I co-created, happened almost by accident. Dan Milano, Spencer Chinoy and myself made a public access show that caught the eye of IFC, and it has had three incarnations since then with a season on Fox.

I'm from outside most of these worlds I'm focusing on, and I feel there's an ethical approach to making these kinds of films. My biggest fear is that if you paint your characters in, you could be doing them wrong.

I've fallen in love with Los Angeles, and I love to explore it myself.

I hoped 'Starlet' would finally open doors for me and lead to a much bigger budgeted movie, but that didn't happen.

'The Little Rascals' was set against the background of the Great Depression: the characters were living in poverty. It's just that it wasn't focused on it. It was focused on what makes childhood universal. We're all laughing at kids because we see ourselves in them; we remember our childhood.

Filmmaking has been my love since my mother brought me to see James Whale's 'Frankenstein' at the local library at the age of six.

There's an alchemy that happens in my eyes when you mix it up, when you have a seasoned actor on set and your first-timer.

I'm very influenced by Mike Leigh and the way that he always has these climactic confrontations, like in 'Secrets and Lies' and 'High Hopes,' in which the ensemble cast meets in one location.

When it comes down to it, I'm still in love with film - I'm a cinephile.

I make dramedies, but 'Tangerine' really has a lot of comedy, and I saw that it had a great effect - it reached a larger audience.

With a lot of these social realist films, the first thing you do is drain the color.

Film is the only art form where we feel we have to title our stuff literally. Musicians don't have to title their songs literally. It can be more about what's conjured up when you think of a word.

A lot of the LGBTQ community accepted 'Tangerine,' which was something we worked really hard to achieve.

I don't have a family. I'm not planning one. I don't have to support anyone but me and my dog.

I went to NYU thinking I was going to make a 'Die Hard' sequel, or maybe action and genre films for the studios, but I ended up falling in love with personal cinema.

I love to combine first-time actors with seasoned actors.

I work with different actors with varied degrees of experience.