Cinema ceases to be passive and becomes active: you, the audience, are now, in some senses, in charge of the filmmaking process. You have all got mobile phones, you have all got cam recorders, and you've all got laptops, so you're all filmmakers.
The film itself should interact with the audience. In the case of 'Queen of Katwe', people are laughing, sobbing and dancing. I am taking them on a ride... It is not like I am asking them for handouts.
Both me and Edgar are firm believers in never underestimating or talking down to an audience, and giving an audience something to do, to give them something which is entirely up to them to enter into the film and find these hidden things and whatever.
Well, besides being entertained, I’d like to move them emotionally. I mean I really want to uplift them. I want to look down at the audience, and this is personal experiences now I’m going to tell you. It’s like you look down at the audience and see people smiling, crying, hugging each other. I want them on their way home to feel empowered like they can do anything.
I think that film festivals, we're very often given to understand, are about filmmakers and about films and about the industry of filmmaking. I don't believe that they are, I believe that film festivals are about film audiences, and about giving an audience the encouragement to feel really empowered and to stretch the elastic of their taste.
With television, attention spans have been shortened. It's something we have to fight against: the dumbing down of the audience. To be part of an audience is a privilege. To be with the people on stage, to let them reach you. If you're doing a million other things, they won't reach you.
I feed off the audience a lot, their energy.
Don't give it to the audience; leave it to the audience.
At the core of what I'm doing is a belief in the audience, a belief that populism doesn't mean dumbing down theater, but rather giving the audience a voice and a role in experiencing theater.
If I tell the audience what they should think, then I am robbing them of their own imagination and their own capacity of deciding what's important to them.
I don't begrudge anyone else for anything, but to me, I think the fans deserve to have a studio put money behind their product because when the fans put money into a project and it makes any sort of money, it goes back to the studio. I think that's a little shady.
Often, American audiences are underestimated by producers and movie studios. They often think we're dumber than we are.
We try to connect with the audience as much as we can. We feel the energy from the audience, and it gives us so much joy and inspiration.
Basically there are no stars anymore. The audience is the star.
When you make a film like this, you must have the highest expectations of your audience. Having worked in situations where we have the lowest expectations of our audience.
I firmly believe in music being as free as possible. Unlocked. Shared and spread. In order for artists to survive and create, their audiences need to step up and directly support them.
I think the reason the Golden Age of television is so golden is because a lot of folks are willing to let creators do their thing and live or die by their own muse. They certainly allow us to do that.
The decline of the major labels has changed the audience. They aren't force-fed by a system any more. They can make their own decisions.
Even though you're in charge, you're not completely in ownership. You know, the audience takes a huge ownership of your show. Look at comments about shows and tell me if I'm wrong. Look at shows like 'The Walking Dead' and the ownership that the audience has of that show.
I think sometimes comedians and entertainers and artists, sometimes they get onstage, and it's all for what they want to do. I think you still need to do stuff for the audience. They're the ones who are making it possible.
