I'm still trying to learn how to do it, I'm still trying to figure out how to make films, but, yeah, it started then [in 1979].
It's kind of true that they just start making the same movie over and over again. It's also true that the times dictate what kind of movies get made and what kind are not. So I'm always looking for something that's a little fresh and something that I haven't seen before.
There are always at least five good films at the end of the year to get nominated, but generally speaking nowadays, it's more of the independent films that are recognized.
It's no accident that all the awards are for smaller movies. When you have $100 million in the budget for a movie, there's something obscenely wrong with the picture. But we didn't in those days, so it was fun.
This business is based on numbers, and the numbers show that it's worth investing in female-driven and female-directed films.
It's so great in Hollywood now. You have people past 40 sitting and talking about serious stuff, writing and making movies and TV, but there's laser pistols and superheroes and alien monsters involved. It's viable and mainstream.
It's part of the film-making business and also part of the creative process - putting all the pieces together to make a movie, so that they all line up. Sometimes it looks like you have a lot of projects lined up, but some of them are in different stages.
Producers shoot movies where the tax incentives are.
Steven Spielberg makes Minority Report with the newest digital technology; other directors seem to be trying to make their movies from it.
Every film that gets made, and I'm not just talking about 'Star Wars,' I'm talking about Marvel, DC, every tent pole film - they seem to just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. The worlds get bigger, the stakes get bigger.
Consequently, their school [film-school ] was the school of life, and it was very much reflected in their work.
It's certainly a difficult time right now to try to make small, smart films. I'm not trying to be self-serving, but you get to Hollywood, and if you want to make something big and loud and dumb, it's pretty easy.
I don't like talking about sequels or spinoffs or franchise until they actually happen, until they actually work with the audience.
I very much enjoy my freedom creatively but I also would love to make one of those big Hollywood films that costs a lot of money and has a lot of people running around with cell phones and all that insanity.
Compared to the United States and certainly a lot of other countries around the world... per year, Australians do see more films.
I see lots of cycles, for sure. There's the whole post-Star Wars era, but I don't think it's the whole story.
The film studios learned to our dismay but to their pleasure that if they spent $200 million making a film they could make half a billion on it. So they were not interested anymore in quality films... They can't afford to be that risky at those prices. Consequently you're getting a lot of remakes, sequels, dopey comedies full of toilet jokes...
Everyone is always trying to figure out the future of film distribution. I try and not spend too much time worrying about things like this and just try to focus on making the best work I can to entertain me and my friends.
Hollywood cools, and when it cools you have to go to where the work is. I ran off to Italy to do spaghetti westerns.
I read certain articles about how all of the new filmmakers are immediately being given massive tentpoles, and there's a lot of original movies that we have now lost as a result of this. I don't want to call it a fad because I think it's a good thing. I think the movies are better as a result.
Good movies beget other good movies. So when a movie captures the imagination and hearts of people around the world, it's going to have a positive influence on similar genres getting made.
I can live without endless television programmes and films just centered around computers. I can sort of live without that.
Of course, Hollywood is still making some excellent pictures which reflect the great artistry that made Hollywood famous throughout the world, but these films are exceptions, judging from box office returns and press reviews.
Audiences and critics they don't like seeing what happens in real life. Why do you think comedies make all the money at the box office? People want to go and laugh. I can understand that.
I think there are some people that are capable of making a sequel more special than the original. And we have seen that when the original 'Terminator' came out, then Jim Cameron outdid himself with the sequel. Then it became the highest grossing movie of the year when it came out in 1991.
