When I was 16, I made some little 35mm documentaries about the poor in London. I went round Notting Hill, which was a real slum in the 1950s, shooting film.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I did important films when I was very young.
It was always something I knew I was capable of and from an early age my mother was involved in the film industry. She used to work at a production company. So I was exposed to a renaissance period of films in New Zealand back in the early 80's.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time on film sets all over the world.
My first film was a movie shot in 1974. I was 18 on that movie set. It was called 'Big Bad Mama.' I turned 19 on the next movie I worked on, which was a black 'Blazing Saddles.' I worked in the art department. It was called 'Darktown Strutters.'
In many ways, I was a typical young guy out of college. I was at Oxford, where every night there'd be a late showing of some great film.
I was born and raised in North Little Rock, Arkansas. I was 15 when I got my first job serving food to the residents in a retirement home - 22 years later I would shoot my first film in one.
It wasn't until I realised that I could actually take nice photographs that I started to become passionate about it. I then got a few jobs working for magazines in London, and I would get terribly excited and intense about doing a job and taking photographs and looking through the lens to capture something amazing.
I used to do a lot of casual photography - back in the olden times when one used film - but it had fallen by the wayside over the years.
I was 15 years old at university, studying economics and philosophy, and I saw a retrospective of Australian film. They were very raw. 'Picnic at Hanging Rock,' 'Gallipoli;' they were fantastic.
I was making a lot of 8mm home movies, since I was twelve, making little dramas and comedies with the neighborhood kids.