The studios don't finance anymore, they get outside funds.Collection: Finance
I was a cartoonist when I was at university, but I decided to go into movie making knowing that I could still draw by doing movies, design work, story boards, and such.Collection: Design
Exploitation films were famous for taking an issue an exploiting it because they could move much faster than a studio could. If there was any hot topic, they would run out and make a quick movie and make a buck on it, by changing it around and using it, in some way, to give some relevance.Collection: Famous
I always wanted to be a stay-at-home dad making art, making movies.Collection: Dad
Don't give me any money, don't give me any people, but give freedom, and I'll give you a movie that looks gigantic.Collection: Freedom
What I love about new technology is that it really pushes the art. It really pushes it in a way that you can't imagine until you come up with the idea. It's idea-based. You can do anything.Collection: Technology
I wish I could freeze time or go back in time and watch my kids grow up all over again because it is just going by too fast.
Everything I've done has always been my own made up world with its own rules and its own made up stories.
I was from such a large family that when I first met my wife, I told her: 'You can go work outside of the house and I'll stay home and continue making my cartoon strips. Maybe I'll make some commercials nearby, you know I'll do anything locally, but I would love to just stay at home and raise the kids like I did when I was growing up.'
The challenge is what was making it exciting. You don't want to do anything that's too easy or that you know that you can pull off, otherwise it's really not worth doing.
A lot of people who watch DVDs are people who are interested in, if not moviemaking, then creativity in general.
If I'm excited about it, I'm pretty sure an audience is going to enjoy it. If I'm bored with an idea, you can bet they're going to be asleep. So I try to only do things that I'm fairly excited about.
Sometimes I feel like I'm in a dream world, because it doesn't always seem too logical how things work out.
When you go off in the world and make your life, and you come back to your home town, and you find your old high-school friends driving in the same circles, doing the same things, that's what Hollywood's like. It's a little block, little town. It doesn't really grow or change.
When you make an exploitation film, you always want to have a real issue. That's how they were always done.
Usually, I'm just pleasing myself and I have very similar tastes I think to an audience, what that core audience really likes.
Low budgets force you to be more creative. Sometimes, with too much money, time and equipment, you can over-think. My way, you can use your gut instinct.
People talk about immigration, but they won't talk about the corruption that actually exists between Mexico and the U.S.
Frank is such a great visual storyteller, that if you study his artwork you see that his Sin City books are already the best movies never seen on the big screen.
Everyone applauds each other's success in Hollywood because they know how tough it is, but it really comes down fundamentally to the process.
If you create a good story that has a lot of story value... I think audiences like that. It's why they stick with the same TV show over and over.
I usually have a couple of projects going on that are different. A 'Sin City' while I'm doing a 'Spy Kids' at the same time. I need different things going on.
If you do a film with a studio, agents step in, they start saying, 'My actor has to get this amount of money', and it becomes about deals.
What could make my life better? Oh, if I could only find that magic bottle that lets you never have to sleep. I have so much stuff I wanna do, but... That six or seven hours you have to be in bed with your eyes closed. What a waste!
I like to keep my budgets at a certain price when I work for someone else, and even more so now that I'm working for myself, and use new technologies to deliver films that look like they have high production levels.
It's rare for the studios to find a filmmaker who wants to make a family film. To find someone that has an idea, embraces it, has kids and wants to make something exciting - well, they don't see that too often.
Hollywood wants to own everything. I don't want to own anything. I don't want people just to make content, I want to empower and teach them to create content they own that they can exploit in any medium.
Don't look at all at what other people are doing. Think of what you're doing as completely fresh because if you imitate you're dead.
Your mind just goes to the craziest idea to lure people into the theater, and then you write your script around those elements.
I have 5 children of my own. They are bilingual, like most second and third generations. But they speak primarily in English and they couldn't find anything on television that represented who they are in this country.
A movie goes from several stages, from idea to script. As you continue shooting, you will make some adjustments. You're constantly adjusting. It's like a piece of music. You're constantly trying to make it better.