I knew nothing about the independent film industry. I didn't know much about the industry itself. All I knew was how to watch movies, how to enjoy them, how to hate them, how not to like them.
I learned that you can make a sci-fi film that is satisfying overseas. European people have everything in check. I'd make every sci-fi film in Europe. They only work 14 hours a day. After that, it's overtime.
I think empathy is a beautiful thing. I think that's the power of film though. We have one of the most powerful, one of the greatest communicative tools known to man.
The only place that I'd be worried about being typecast is the independent film world.
Nudity, in the right way, can enhance a film or a TV program or a TV commercial. If it's done tastefully it can make it more of an interesting product.
I have a movie coming out called Spun, which will be at the Toronto Film Fest.
Toy Soldiers was my introduction to film. I certainly didn't think I was doing art by any stretch of the imagination.
Directing is creating a whole. You're able to combine different elements and create a film that is unique and true to your vision.
Altman was told they wouldn't do the film with me. He could easily have abandoned me, but he stood by me and really bailed me out.
And Twin Peaks, the Film is the craziest film in the history of cinema. I have no idea what happened, I have no idea what I saw, all I know is that I left the theater floating six feet above the ground.
For me, the film has to be incredibly bad to make me want to pack up and leave.
When you see the films of certain young directors, you get the impression that film history begins for them around 1980.
I think a lot of the time these days people are so concerned about having the right camera and the right film and the right lenses and all the special effects that go along with it, even the computer, that they're missing the key element.
It's about not letting the internal enemy, the real enemy, have his way because the more he does the stronger he becomes. The film's about the devastating results that can manifest from the internal enemy being unbridled and allowed to unleash chaos.
I got into film-making because I was interested in making entertaining movies, which I felt there was a lack of.