You have to follow your instinct all the time. Otherwise you don't make it.
To be a visionary, all you have to do is make decisions based off of your eyes instead of your ears and your memory.
I tend to make my most important decisions by following my instincts rather than any straightforward logic.
I've done a few movies where I really liked the project, but I wasn't sure about the director, and I still did it and my instinct was right, in the beginning. Even though it was a good story, the guy still didn't really know what he was doing.
I really just followed my musical instincts every step of my life.
Being able to just stick to our instincts and honor the [Hunger Games] books and find a way to stay the course of trying to make the best possible decisions that you would make creatively on any movie, without having your head turned too much by all of the interest, has been a great challenge. It's the best challenge you could ask for, but that was a big challenge.
When I first started out in my career, I'd been a lit major in college so I didn't have a lot of choices. The traditional options were management consultant or investment banking, and I hadn't even taken an economics class so those were pretty much out. I didn't want to go into academia. For me, research and instinct were my unique tools that seemed to work best on a marketing and merchandizing path. It's kind of right-brain and left-brain.
I would tell any aspiring designer to take the time to experience everything they can to really get a feel for what direction they want to go in. And most importantly, let your passion and your gut lead you.
I never listen to what people tell me and I can't read. The only way I know what is right and wrong is the way I feel about things. If I feel bad, it's wrong. If I feel good, it's right.
I try and avoid thinking of strategy and I tend to stick to my gun of doing things that I like and try to avoid things that I "should" be doing, and stay true to that.
