'Baby's Day Out' is maybe not a great movie, but... No, I've enjoyed and learned things from every project I've worked on. That was an important step in my career at ILM.
The best project is one that asks a novel question.
If it's a worthwhile project, no matter where it's created, it'll be competitive anywhere.
A simple idea. And the man that worked on it, Mike Gabriel, doubled the value. Beautiful job. I should say triple. We have others like that, but, unfortunately, shorts, which are my favorite approach, are economically of no value.
Companies come to us because they think we can quickly turn around things in 3 or 5 months and that's really our sweet spot. When you're a large company, you need projects that are several hundred million worth.
I have no idea. I get involved because I think there's value in the project and because I love the character that is presented to me. I love the opportunity to examine a character, and to have him examine me, live inside me and move my hands. I love that. It's irresistible. It's a drug.
There is always something that you will take away from each project. There definitely has to be something that you have said yes to in the first place. In some projects, it's the freedom to express yourself more; in some, it's a bigger sense of camaraderie, and somewhere, it's the money that is great.
What if we found ourselves building something that nobody wanted? In that case what did it matter if we did it on time and on budget?
Your personal capacity to handle more valuable projects will go up when you appreciate yourself more.
All the work that I do, whether or not it ends up being commercially successful or not, feels like the most important thing to me while I'm doing it. I try to take something away from every project, and so they all feel like milestones for one reason or another.
Every year, I have given Rs 20,000 crore worth of projects to HAL. But the previous UPA government gave just Rs 10,000 crore projects.
The more you focus on control, the more likely you're working on a project that's striving to deliver something of relatively minor value.
