Just in the past few years - since I've been making movies, which isn't a very long time - you now have a culture that is fascinated and informed about the box office in a way that sometimes filmmakers weren't even.
Content is now the most import factor that decides a film's success at the box office, so we as filmmakers are all trying different stories.
I loved American filmmakers when I was growing up. I didn't get to film school or anything. I was a very bad student. I just devoured film, but there was a point in my teens when I started to run a little film society.
I love scary movies and respect the filmmakers of scary movies, and it's just as hard to make a great scary movie as it is to make a great comedy or drama or anything else.
Personally I find there is just as much if not more creativity among game makers as there is among feature filmmakers.
I was very impressed with Davis Guggenheim's 'An Inconvenient Truth.' He's inspired me as one of the newer, cutting-edge documentary filmmakers. I see those films, and I'm just instinctively drawn to them.
Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you're a director. Everything after that you're just negotiating your budget and your fee.
As a veteran, I am always appreciative when filmmakers bring to the screen stories of those who have served.
When I meet certain filmmakers, sometimes you sit down and you do have some kind of shorthand. It can be fun to see them as someone who has been through similar experiences, but also as someone who just loves film. You can talk with them about films in a way that feels really free.
One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.
From where I sit, I see the digital cinema creating sloppiness on the part of filmmakers because they know if they really get in trouble, they can fix it later. So they don't pay that much attention, and of course it costs a lot more money.
I am always in self-doubt... every moment of my filmmaking. I am supremely confident when the story is being written and everything is in our head. But the moment we get into the filmmaking, I start doubting myself - from the camera angle to the re-recording to getting the actors to do their shots.
You know, when I first started making online videos, there were a lot of filmmakers I befriended who were doing it too.
I grew up as a reader as well as a movie-lover, so many of the novelists I admired - and so many of the great filmmakers I loved - were self-taught.
When you work with filmmakers, and it's their first film, there's an exuberance and optimism, which is quite... There's no room for being jaded. Thinking that you know it all.
When I think about filmmakers and actresses that I have admired my whole life, I've admired their entire body of work.
Over the course of my career, I've had the great fortune of working with some incredible filmmakers who have protected me and inspired me and taught me what an honor it is to work in film.
I started studying filmmakers, and I would say early on the ones that really inspired me the most were like the field magicians of music videos.
The cool thing about those small-budget movies is that there's a tremendous amount of freedom the filmmakers have since there's less money at stake.
I guess it's easier to get things made when you know the story you want to tell, you know the characters you want to play, and you know the filmmakers you want to tell them with.
I love filmmakers.
I was a journalist and wrote about filmmakers, but I didn't review movies per se.
I wanted to be respected by filmmakers, and why should they respect me if they saw that my superiors did not treat me with respect.
I've been very lucky to work with great filmmakers. But I think my days of just freely acting regularly, that being my sole creative fulfillment, are gone.
I love learning from the filmmakers that I'm working with, but more importantly, I love learning from the crew.
