The worst thing is that you used to be able to show interesting films on campuses. Those places are all gone.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I can't even remember not wanting to go to film school.
I've been on the board of UCLA Film and TV School, and I went to UCLA. I realized that the same movie theater that was there when I went to school, 30 years later is the same movie theater in the same condition. There was an opportunity to refurbish an existing room, and I jumped at the opportunity.
My first few films were institutional comedies, and you're on pretty safe ground when you're dealing with an institution that vast numbers of people have experienced: college, summer camp, the military, the country club.
I didn't see many films until I was in college teaching.
I was sent to boarding school - a grim place. The only good thing the headmaster did for us was every Sunday evening in the winter he would show us films in the chapel. He couldn't afford a sound projector, so we saw silent films, which you could then still rent from photographic shops.
I was one of those avid moviegoers as a kid, and we didn't have video, so we went to see everything five times. I went to see every foreign film playing in my town. As times went on, I watched a lot less films. I have a different film school now. My film school now is my life experience.
I don't know if I'd want to do that anymore, because you always get bigger laughs on college campuses. So, when the film plays in front of a city audience, you've probably cut too loosely.
'Saw,' in many ways, was like my student film. The first crappy student film you don't really want people to see.
No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film.
As I told the students every time I visited a campus, you are the director of your own movie, and if you aren't enjoying what you are doing, change it.