When people are feeling insecure about their jobs and there are cuts to be made, it's hard to put up an argument that the film industry needs funding.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
We've gotten to a point where it costs so much money to make a movie that directors and filmmakers feel they have to make sure that everybody gets it. And that's an unfortunate development, I think, in a lot of narratives floating around in the film industry.
People are very reluctant to invest unless they know it's going to be a sure thing, and let's face it: film is never a sure thing.
I think the situation in Toronto is such that there are funding organizations which make it easy for a film to raise more money than it needs and very often that works against a film.
My taste in films doesn't lead financers to think they are going to make a zillion dollars.
Certain actors wanna get paid, they think working in a low-budget movie is being ripped off. But for others it's like, 'Yes, let's do it.'
And it's one reason why I don't go to a lot of movies - they're more and more dominated by corporate values and fiscal concerns as opposed to cinematic concerns.
Movie studios are owned by giant corporations. They care about money; they don't care about movies.
It's not a great feeling for a film to suffer financially, but you can't sit and mope about it. You just have to just move on to next project - I try to always be working on a new project when my last one hits the theaters.
Even on a $100 million film, people will complain that they haven't got enough money and enough time, so that's always going to be an element in filmmaking.
Now, more then ever, we have the ability to make films for almost nothing and that's broken down all barriers of entry. I think it's a new golden age of film-making. With that, there needs to be the ability to recoup investment dollars, people need to make money.