In the 10 years that I've been a professional filmmaker, the film part of the film industry is really disappearing, right in front of our eyes.
My relationship with my wife is fraught with all of the problems that any couples face, but there is a sense of humor that we have about it and a real desire to want to make it better.
If you're a working mom, you're still expected to be a super-mom at home, buy organic food, put dinner on the table every night, and do all the research into preschools. It's really hard.
I'm interested in taking things from my relationship that I don't see on screen - or that I feel like that could be useful or helpful if it were out in the open - and trying to put that in the movies as much as possible.
I don't want to force somebody to talk about sensitive subjects if they're not into it, but at the very least, even if that's happening off camera, it's allowing everybody to be on the same level, and creates an atmosphere on set that engenders trust.
Just because you married doesn't mean you're not an individual person with your own wants and desires and needs.
Rather than look at a marriage as two people morphing into one thing, you could see two individuals who are choosing to form a partnership.
I want to communicate with people, and I want to make something that works, and that people like. I'm never purposefully trying to be antagonistic or shocking or anything that would push an audience away. I'm always hoping to reach as many people as I can.
There are people I'm drawn to that you just can't do a tiny, no-budget movie with. I would like to pursue some of that stuff, to see if I could do a movie with some of those people. And I don't really write scripts myself, but if I read a script I thought was really great, I would totally be up for doing a more traditional movie. It's just that I don't exist in that world. right now.
I do some freelance web design stuff. I taught a directing class for this not-for-profit organization here in Chicago a couple months ago. I wrote a thing for Filmmaker Magazine a couple months ago. Occasionally, I'll get to go speak to students at a university and make a little money that way, which is great. I really like doing that.
There's a lot of cultural pressure around specialness and seeing your family. I feel like everything gets jacked up a little bit because of all of these expectations of love and family bonding.
I've done a lot of movies that don't have any music in them, and I've always sort of had a kind of wary attitude about music because it can be so manipulative, and also because with pop music, I feel like everybody kind of has their own relationship to songs.
