I Don't Believe In Leaving A Scene

I Don't Believe In Leaving A Scene In Because It Was Really Hard To Shoot, Or Because It's The Reason You Took The Movie, Or Because You Always Wanted To Work With An Actor . . . If It's Not Making The Movie Work, Get Rid Of It.

When I Move From Being A Cameraman To Being A Director I Looked At A Lot Of Other Cameramen Who Tried To Make The Move. And In Each Case They Moved Up Their Camera Operator To Be The Dp, Which Really Meant They Didn't Want To Give Up Being The Dp, And Really Wanted To Do Both. And My Feeling Was If I Was Going To Succeed As A Director, I Had To Just Be A Director And Give Up The Safety Net Of Being A Cameraman.

When You're Done Shooting, The Movie That You're Going To Release When You're Done Shooting Is As Bad As It Will Ever Be. And Then Through Editing, And Finishing The Effects And Adding Music, You Get To Make The Movie Better Again. So I'm Really Hard On Myself And On The Movie.

Michael Jackson Wanted To Be In Men In Black Ii. He Told Me He Had Seen The First Men In Black In Paris And Had Stayed Behind And Sat There And Wept. I Had To Explain To Him That It Was A Comedy.

I'm Not The One Or Two Take Guy, But I'm Not The 20, 30, 50, 70 Take Guy Either. If I Do A Bunch Of Takes, Like More Than Five Or Six, It's Usually For Some Technical Reasons.