It was important on The Shipping News to have my house far enough away from each location so I had this time in the morning to think about my shots and still remain open to surprises once I got to the set.
Newlyweds shooting budget: 5k for actors, 2k insurance, 2k food and drink. 9k in the can. We only shot 12 days. That's how to make an independent film.
Not many people get that chance to have multiple studios wanting you to make a movie with them.
TNT is a really great company to do a show for. They really believe in their shows and give shows a lot of support. They have it all worked out before you start shooting. Everybody's on the same page.
The best recording is the one you bring with you in your mind.
One of the main reasons I am so drawn to Hitchcock is that he planned his shots way in advance on story-boards, which he designed like classic paintings (he was an art connoisseur). It's why he found shooting on set boring - because he had already composed the film in his head.
As a director, you have to go in with a really, really, really clear picture of what you want.
Shooting on film is great because it imparts discipline: What do you need to see so you're not finding it in the camera. When I'm shooting, I have the scene in mind, where I'm going to have certain lines. I learned to overlap and to shoot more than I think I need. That was the learning curve.
In the theater, you didn't have any marks. Your instincts in rehearsal told you what the blocking was. On film, they reversed it. They decided ahead of time what your instincts were, before you even arrived.
There's this kind of incredibly mistaken idea that because it's so much cheaper to roll the camera than it used to be and it's so much easier to accumulate a ton of footage, that then you can just go shoot a ton of footage and the editor will make sense out of it. But if you don't have something deliberate made, you're not gonna save it in the editing room.
My scripts are always heavily noted. If I can take a director to one side and say, "Do you mind if we try this?," a few days before, that's usually a better way of doing it then on the day.
When we produced 'Highway,' Imtiaz Ali and I planned it as a quick small experimental film, while we waited for Ranbir Kapoor's dates later during the year.
I've always sensed what a script should sound like - even before the movie's been made
I don't storyboard. I guess it dates back to my days in live television, where there was no possibility of storyboarding and everything was shot right on the spot - on the air, as we say - at the moment we were transmitting. I prefer to be open to what the actors do, how they interact to the given situation.
We have amazing stunt performers and in Miguel Sapochnik, a director who's so good at spending hours and hours and hours on every shot beforehand, so that he knows exactly what he wants when he gets to the battlefield on the day. We only shoot ten-hour days, so you have to pack a lot into those ten hours.
Shooting in Hong Kong, you can do whatever you want, even change the script every day. In Hollywood, you have to have a lot of meetings.
I don't believe in development. I believe in pre-pre-production, so when I sit down with an idea for a movie, I'm thinking I'm going to make this film. I don't think about anything else.
Nothing can really prepare you for live TV because you never know what's going to happen. I think, for me, what really helps is I know what I'm looking for when I'm shooting things, so it definitely helps to have that eye and know what camera you're looking at.
Directing, to me, starts even before we get to the set. Directing is a fluid, an abstract thing. It's not done only purely in the moment. It's an idea that you plant before. It's a location that you show. It's something I whisper in someone's ear. It's a freeform thing. It only takes me a week to write the script, but it's years that you're thinking about it. The execution is really the fast part.
When you're doing a car chase movie, you're sitting in car waiting for places or grips or stuff for quite a while.
That's the great thing about being a director. You have your list of things you have to worry about and things you don't have to worry about. If you can hire someone or cast someone who equates to not having to worry about, it's great!
I've learned more, and I understand the process a bit better now. I can try to see how long I want to take in each aspect of the filmmaking process, and then arrive at around the two-year end mark.
In photo shoots, I rely on instinct. Which is not to say I don't bring ideas to a project or consider it beforehand.
I try to learn from both, from features and documentaries. In both cases you have to find a way to make the camera as discreet as possible, and flexible enough to be able to capture the moment when it happens. I know from documentary how to not have a preconceived idea of what the scene could be.
As I've always said, preproduction is so important. When you cast the actors, you've done much of the work. Now, you may need to guide them a little, take it up or down, have them go faster or slower, but the casting process is crucial.
