In the Seventies, album artwork became really beautiful items. The whole process of doing an album sleeve, it became a very artistic thing.
Typically, whenever you're envisioning how you're going to shoot something, you have a location or a set that you're going to build, and it's going to be built to specifications.
'The Dance Scene' is basically the most amazing dance show in the world, and it follows me as a creative director. You see how I maintain that creativity.
I've made some films that were very much image based: 'Anna Karenina' and 'Pan,' for instance.
Great art direction is NOT the same thing as great film direction!
Visually, I'm always considering shots and composition quite a lot, and I love putting art into films, and I do a lot of the art.
I'm the creative director of awesomeness.
I'm a creative guy, a designer, a customer.
'The Shining' is operatic and sensational and... really shocking. It has this amazing meld of classical music and modern interpretations of classical music, and incredible imagery. From the set design to the costumes, there's so much to unpack.
I've always been interested in the camera and the effects of it - that's what drew me to film in the first place.
First and foremost, I'm a decorator and product designer. Everything I do, the television shows, the books, that comes from the design work. It's what I love.
For four years, I worked as one of the general shop crew on movies like 'Naked Lunch' and 'Arachnophobia.' I made lots of bugs.
People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at.
I'm a designer, which includes interiors, architecture, fashion, furniture, and lifestyle.
I've always wanted to get involved with designing a video game.
I have three assistants, but there isn't a head assistant. All the important drawings I do myself. Every single character is also done by me.
My first film was a movie shot in 1974. I was 18 on that movie set. It was called 'Big Bad Mama.' I turned 19 on the next movie I worked on, which was a black 'Blazing Saddles.' I worked in the art department. It was called 'Darktown Strutters.'
I'm not an art director; I'm just not. I've always been somebody who has a sensibility that I hope is the same sensibility of others.
What I loved about the 1950s is that there is an aesthetic to even the average film. The way the camera is placed, the way characters move, the way you dressed the sets, the respect for craft and actors, I do miss that in today's films.
I don't get why radio shows allow artists to do shows without creative control, without any art direction at all. Instead of that, I get their press guys, their camera guys to be my backdrop of my show.
Last summer a second unit production crew went to France and shot scenes for several of this season's episodes. They shot costumed actors in and around real castles and landmarks, we couldn't possibly have duplicated here in Hollywood.
One of the first things I picked up when I was very, very young out of a record store was work from Peter Saville - the early things he used to do for Factory Records.
I think naturally I'm a very visual kind of person. If I wasn't in filmmaking, I'd be in something related to visuals. And I used to actually work as a visual-effects artist.
All my films have been larger-than-life. And since I've sat on almost all the scripts of the films I've produced, I do not compromise on aesthetics and visuals that could add to a scene.
All I know is movies; I went to school, but movies are my reference point for everything. I figured I'd have to P.A. or intern in the art department. Because the filmmaking process is so many people creating to make one piece of magic, so I've always wanted to be involved. With the acting, I doubted it.
