Especially with a comedy, you've got the clear cut goal of trying to make a scene funny. It's not like drama where you're trying to achieve some kind of emotion or trying to further the story along. You're trying to figure out what's the funniest way to do something.
A lot of the struggle I had with movies is I really loved moments and tones and feelings in a scene, and I loved creating those, but I never really had great stories to string them together.
For a cinematographer, every frame has to be important.
I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.
I often will write a scene from three different points of view to find out which has the most tension and which way I'm able to conceal the information I'm trying to conceal. And that is, at the end of the day, what writing suspense is all about.
[Martin Scorsese ] basically works just like any other director. You work the scene, you try to find what's best in it and make it work. That's what it was like.
As a filmmaker, you are going to manipulate the character as you need to make the scenes work.
I love scenes with minimal dialogue.
