There Is Something About Being A Director

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.

These Movies Are Like My Kids. I Just Love Them To Death. Some Of Them Go To Harvard And Some Of Them Can Barely Graduate High School.

The First Cut I Do Is Usually Between Five And 10 Minutes Shorter Then The Cut That We Release. Anything I Think Isn't Working Or Might Not Work, I Don't Even Put It In The Director's Cut. And Usually It's The Studio Suggesting I Put Stuff Back In, As Opposed To Studios Saying, "you Got To Lose 40 Minutes," They Are Always Saying, "you've Got To Gain Five Minutes."

There Is Something About Being A Director Where, For Me Personally, I Get To . . . It's The Closest I'll Ever Come To Being Able To Be A Stand Up. And To Use My Particular Sense Of Humor, And Hear People Laughing, Without Me Having To Stand Up In Front Of An Audience And Tell Jokes.

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.