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I carry a disposable camera. It takes me back to my childhood, when you had to develop your film and wait to see what pictures you got.

I carry my own film guys with me now. People think that's a huge expense, but with technology like it is these days, it's not. You can film videos and everything with a Canon Mark II, and shoot a movie. They're doing it for next to nothing, by comparison. I can do ten videos for a project for the price of one mainstream video in the past.

My first experience with film was through a still camera. I would sit, very much against my will, with my father in the game reserve, watching some elephant or rhino or whatever, through a 400 millimeter lens and wait, and waiting and waiting.

We had two cameras, so they could turn it on and shoot as much as we wanted. You don't have to worry about wasting money on film. A lot more takes are possible.

I think films have to reach people and really grab them. That's what I hope to do when I make a film - to get under your skin and really make you think about something, and have a transporting time that takes you somewhere.

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.

A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.

I don't want to knock photography, and I don't feel that film is up there but photography isn't. I think they're next to each other really, you know. There's an incredible strength to a still picture. Or there can be an incredible strength to a still picture that can outlive you. That can outlive a film.

I don't use film cameras. I don't do visual effects the same way. We don't use miniature models; it's all CG now, creating worlds in CG. It's a completely different toolset. But the rules of storytelling are the same.

Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.