I was a film editor for eight years before I made my first feature, 'Dog Soldiers.' I am from Newcastle upon Tyne, in the northeast of England.
People who actually tell stories, meaning people who write novels and make feature films, don't see themselves as storytellers.
I'm used to adapting my novels for feature film - it can be challenging to cut and compress three or four hundred pages into two hours of dramatic action.
Now, after the communist take-over in 1948, the amount of feature films produced dwindled to three a year, while the school was, you know, every year another three, four, five students.
I think feature films sell on the idea, and I think TV works based almost entirely on execution. I don't think anybody is going, 'Wow, that show is executed poorly, but the idea is so cool I just have to keep watching.'
My mother gave me this book called Feature Films at Used Car Prices by a guy named Rick Schmidt. I gotta credit the guy, cuz he gave me the most practical advice. It empowers you.
I think feature film can be quite conservative, because you have to now get audiences to come out, and it's quite a hard thing to do. Of course, television can be conservative too.
After a couple of attempts at making shorts, I decided to make a feature film with a friend, Tom Hall, whom I've worked with ever since.
I think it's a mistake for young filmmakers to just buy digital equipment and shoot a feature. Make short films first, make your mistakes and learn from them.
I feel like something I've wanted to do for a really long time, in a feature film or anything, is playing a rocker. Somewhere where I can be on a stage and have a guitar or a microphone and just kind of jam out.
I started making little films with a 16 mm camera as an undergraduate at Yale. My first job out of college was 'assistant editor' on a forgettable low budget feature.
One of the differences between HBO and other television is that they demand the same coverage that you would have in a feature film. We need to have all the shots in order to make it as rich and as stunning as it looks. We can't cut any corners.
I mean, journalism is very detailed... you try to get down in the weeds and sort out exactly what happened. And I don't think that a feature film is really a place where that happens.
When the BBC decided to bring Doctor Who back as a feature film a few years ago, one national newspaper ran a poll to ask its readers who should be the new Doctor, and I topped it.
I think what's so great about making your first feature film is that you're so naive in some ways; you don't know what to expect, and you don't question things as much because you're just trying to figure it out as you go.
I'm a fan of the old 'Creature Features' like 'Critters,' and 'Gremlins' and 'Tremors.' 'Jaws' is classic. It's funny that I still like those films because I remember my mom would tease me about getting a pet Critter to keep under my bed.
T.V. is the place to do the kind of films that were done in the 40s and 50s: the little guy against the system. There are so many opportunities in T.V. to do more character pieces. Everything is so hard-edged in features.
Any film featuring Bradley Cooper's gorgeous blue eyes is automatically on my must-see list and they did not disappoint in 'The Words,' which is so intense and confusing that I was pretty lost by the end!
I think part of the reason ideas haven't come in is that the world of cinema is changing so drastically, and in a weird way, feature films I think have become cheap. Everything is kind of throwaway. It's experienced and then forgotten.
I would love to be nominated for an award at some point or do something that at least engenders the type of cultural conversation that a role like Giancarlo Esposito on 'Breaking Bad,' or actually any of the people on 'Breaking Bad.' I would love to ...
I have done a lot of work in Hollywood myself. I worked in television for roughly 10 years, from the mid-'80s to mid-'90s. And I was on staff at a couple of shows. I did some feature films, including originals and adaptations.
