1. The thrill is in the hunt for a good idea.
We donât know an idea until it enters a conscious mind. Ideas have to travel quite a ways before they come into the conscious mind. So by transcending, you start expanding that consciousness, making the subconscious conscious.
Youâll catch ideas on a deeper level. And they have more information and more of a thrill. Itâs the happiness in the doing that got greater for me. Catching more ideas became easier, along with a kind of inner self-assuredness. Looking back, I did not have much self-assuredness in the beginning.
2. Inner strength is key to working in the entertainment business.
In this business, or in any business, you can just get streamrolled if you donât have this inner strength. And the more happiness you have going in, life becomes more of a game than a torment. And so you look out at the world of people that used to stress you. It could happen that you would just put your arm around them and say, âLetâs go have a coffee.â Everything seems happier.
I always wondered if Transcendental Meditation would make someone just so calm that they didnât want to do anything. Theyâd just become a bland person and only wanted to eat nuts and raisins. But itâs not that way. You get more energy. Thatâs the field of unbounded energy within every human being. Itâs very, very important for the work, this thing of happiness. Itâs so important to be happy in the doing.
3. Positivity is essential to the creative process.
Stories always have held conflicts and contrasts, highs and lows, life and death situations. And there can be much suffering in stories, but now we say the artist doesnât have to suffer to show suffering. You just have to understand the human condition, understand the suffering.
A lot of artists say anger or even the experience of fear or these things feeds the work, and so the suffering artist is a romantic concept. But if you think about it, itâs romantic for everybody except the artist. If the artist is really suffering, then the ideas donât flow so good, and if [he is] really suffering, he canât even work. I say that negativity is the enemy to creativity.
4. Everything must serve to push the idea forward.
For me there is always a plot. There is a story that makes sense to me. But in the story, there are things that are more abstract. There are feelings, and cinema can say feelings and can say abstract thoughts. Cinema can go back in time, or forward, and itâs very magical. But you do not do it just to do it. You do it to realize the ideas you fall in love with. The ideas are gifts, such beautiful gifts. And I am always so thankful when I get an idea that I fall in love with. It is a beautiful day to get an idea that you love. What we need is ideas. That is the only thing we really need.
5. Donât get ahead of your idea.
Donât think about the money or whatâs going to happen after the film is finished. The first thing you need is an idea, an idea that you fall in love with. The idea tells you the mood you choose for the characters, how the characters talk. It tells you the story, it shows you all the details, and so all you have to do is stay true to that idea as you shoot your film.
Even with a little amount of money it is possible to figure out a way to do things. So you stay true to the idea, and you donât let anyone interfere with it. And all rules include final cut and total creative freedom. If you donât have the final say or the creative freedom whatâs the point of doing anything?
6. Everyone must be on board with your idea.
The trick is to get everyone working with you to go on the same road, based on the same ideas. And you do this by talking. In the prop department for instance, the prop person can bring me some things. They may be very good things, but theyâre not in line with the idea. So, you tell the prop man the reason that theyâre not in line, and to look for things that are more like this. And the next time he comes, it will be much closer to the idea. And one day he will bring things because he catches the idea.
Itâs the same way with actors. You have rehearsals, and it gets closer by talking and talking. I always say, they catch that idea there, the way they talk, the way they think, the way they move. Itâs the same way with all the departments that are helping me.
7. Get inspired, not influenced.
Thereâs a difference between influence and inspiration. I was never a film buff, and I was not really interested in art history when I was a painter. For me, I always say the city of Philadelphia was my greatest influence. The mood of that place when I was there, the feeling in the air, the architecture, the decay, insanity, corruption and fear swimming in that city are the things I saw in films.
I donât really care what is going on in the world, nor with cinema. However, once in awhile, you can see a film that is truly great. Or you see some new paintings and say, âThat person has really got something fantastic.â It is an inspiration, and it pushes you forward.
8. Donât ignore your transitions.
Cinema is very close to music. In music, lots of times you have different sections, so a very loud, fast technique and then very, slow; very high things and very low things. It is all moving forward at a certain pace, and everybody knows that the piece of music written on the page, that a certain conductor with a certain orchestra can get something so profoundly above the others. Itâs a magical thing. Cinema moves through time like music. It goes from one scene to another. One of the things that is important is these transitions between one thing and another, one thing flowing into another. And these transitions are very important and very beautiful.
9. Cinema doesnât need to make sweeping statements on society.
A lot of times, someone finishes a film and in the film thereâs a man and a woman, and certain things happen. And the journalists will say, âOh, does this mean you feel this way about women and men in general?â No. Itâs this particular woman in this particular place going through these particular things. That woman does not represent all women â and this is very important.
10. Stop the film vs. digital debate. Thereâs room for both.
For a long time I championed digital. I fell in love with digital withInland Empire. And recently, I was working on deleted scenes from Twin Peaks. And for the first time in a long time, I saw the footage shot on film, and I was overwhelmed by the depth of the beauty that celluloid, that film can give. It has such a depth and such a beauty. And I like to photograph factories, and I think that in photographing factories I also saw the difference between digital and celluloid in film.
So, there are all these different choices we have. In digital we have very long takes. You donât have to stop the camera. You can keep it rolling. And you can talk about the scene while the camera is rolling, and a lot of time that helps to get a film deeper and deeper. Digital is lightweight, much faster, no dirt, no scratches, no tearing, and there is so much control in post-production. It is a beautiful thing. But maybe these different mediums will all stay alive and one thing will be right for this project and another thing will be right for that project.
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