I love my genre films, but I think when I get older, the way I tell it will be very different to how I told it when I was in my mid-twenties, which is how old I was when I made the first 'Saw.'
Every technology that comes into filmmaking is first a gimmick. Think about sound with 'The Jazz Singer' or the first colour or surround sound - it takes a while for filmmakers to understand how to use it.
Of course subjects are changing, and since I started so early in filmmaking, I did my first film at age 19, of course you grow up with your films and you are not trotting the same path all the time.
Other than advances in technology and equipment, making a movie is the same as it was when I started, at least. I don't go back to the silent era.
Yes, if I had it my way I would do all the shots myself - I used to do that when I was just a cameraman, an operator - but there's no way; you can't do that anymore.
I feel like we cheated... because you read about these other directors, just like, 'Damn! They paid dues for 10 years before they got to get behind the camera.' We cheated because technology was in the right place at the right time, and we were alive at the right age at the right time for us to take advantage of that.
If filmmakers are ignorant of the past, they laborto re-invent the wheel in every picture. You sit and think, 'Well,we're back to 1903 here.'
As a filmmaker, one tends to want to evolve evermore towards a place of independence.
I think it's like the '60s - we're going to see another revolution in film where these new filmmakers stand up and take ownership of what film is and mould it into what they want.
I even agree with the new digital ways of filmmaking, where you don't even have physical film in the camera, but to be honest, I wouldn't want to use it.
When I first started, I saw myself shooting documentaries or making documentaries, which is what I did, mostly, for a number of years. So it was quite a surprise how I found myself shooting features. It was like my wildest dreams as a kid collided.
The big studio era is from the coming of sound until 1950, until I came in... I came in at a crux in film, which was the end of the studio era and the rise of filmmaking.
The traditions of Hollywood are grand and great and are going to survive forever, in a way. But they're not going to be the only way for much longer. The technology is such now that you don't have to have millions of dollars to make a movie. You can make one with a computer.
There are all kinds of things evolving in filmmaking I'm not sure I'm comfortable with. A friend of mine just showed me an immersive 360 movie where you move from environment to environment and can look in any direction you want while you're experiencing it. Which is cool - but it kills directing, as far as I'm concerned.
Whole class of filmmakers, they're all graduating to a new level of filmmaking, which I think is awesome.
We've evolved from sitting back on our tripods and shooting wildlife films like they have been shot historically, which doesn't work for us.
