I was doing well in TV as a freelance cameraman, but it wasn't the direction I wanted to go in. I directed videos and tried to put something cinematic in every one. Dialogue, action sequences, helicopter, Steadicam.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As I started to develop as a director, I wanted to do projects that were inherently more cinematic, where the freight was not so much in the dialogue, where it would be carried more by the camera.
I've done a lot of TV, but not film.
When I was younger, me and my brother got a video camera, and he used to direct and I used to act. We used to make these silly, stupid short films, which, looking back now, were probably horrible.
Well, getting behind the camera is something I've always wanted to get involved with. Ever since I was doing movies like 'Zathura' I was very interested in all the different jobs on set and kind of soaking all the information up like a sponge.
Most of music videos were short films - they had dialogue, action sequences. I shot with cranes and helicopters. I wanted to created cinema-like moments.
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.
I like how steady the work in television is. Films, they're hard to come by. They're elusive. I've done a couple, independently financed. You do them, and maybe a few people will see them.
Filming is always a challenge because I'm not used to it. But I approach it head-on. I'm not technically brilliant, but it's the spirit that counts.
The kinds of films that I'm used to doing are independent films. They're very small character-driven pieces, and there isn't as much spectacle involved.
I was mainly a stage actor. I found film acting mechanical, because it was so technical - there was so much technique with the lamps and the movements of the camera.