Each film is different. Time Code was very quick - a matter of months. Miss Julie has been on my shelf as a script for some seven or eight years. But then the shooting process was very quick - 16 days.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In TV, you're basically shooting an episode in 10 to 14 days; 14 days is a luxury situation. And in film, you have anywhere from a month to three months, or it can be even longer than that, depending on what the production is.
Usually, you can shoot a movie in 10 or 12 weeks.
After I directed for the first time, I wanted to call every director I'd ever worked with and apologize. In television you are tasked with shooting 42 minutes, or whatever, in eight days. That's not a lot of time.
I think to do a proper independent movie, in my experience, it takes 22 or 23 days to shoot. That was 'Party Girl' or 'House of Yes.' But now with the digital camera, the budgets have gotten smaller, and the days have gotten shorter.
In television you don't have a lot of time to spend with the role or the script. Typically you get a script a week prior to shooting. Sometimes it's even less time, not enough time to dream about the role.
When I did that first movie, it was the introduction to all the set-up time and the waiting time that's endemic in motion pictures, and the repetition.
I've never done a movie that's shot more than 40 days because I just don't do those kinds of films.
When you think of a movie, most people imagine a two hour finished, polished product. But to get to that two hour product, it can take hundreds or thousands of people many months of full time work.
A movie shoots six months for two hours of film.
It takes a long time to get a film made.