The Kindest Thing A Director Can Do

I Always Think About Visual Comedy. I Was Raised Watching Silents, And I'm Always Thinking About How To Make Cinema, Not Good Talking - Although I Want Good Talking. I'm Much More Interested In Framing, Composition, And Orchestration Of Bodies In Space, And So Forth. My Goal Is Always What Chuck Jones Wanted His Warner Brothers Cartoons To Be, Which Was If You Turn Down The Sound, You Could Still Tell What's Going On.

A Pitfall Of Making A Comedy With A Studio-and It's Also An American Cultural Thing-is That I Get Tired Of Being Encouraged To Go Always For Laughs.

All Three Parts Of Filmmaking [writing, Shooting, Editing] Contribute To Rhytm. You Want The Script To Be A Tight As Possible, You Want The Acting To Be As Efficient As Possible On The Set, And You Have Enough Coverage To Manipulate The Rhythm In The Editing Room, And Then In The Editing Room You Want To Find The Quickest Possible Version, Even If It's A Leisurely Paced Film. I Definitely In Filmmaking More And More Find Writing And Directing A Means To Harvest Material For Editing. It's All About Editing.

I Don't Want All Of American Cinema To Be Big Cartoons That Are Just Made To Be Digested By The Entire World.

I Make Comedies And I Always Try... I Don't Try But I Allow To Have At Least 5% Of The Jokes Or Have Some Jokes That I Know Will Be Understood By Only About 5% Of The Audience. It's That Guy In The Corner Who Gets It And Laughs. But He Has To Have His Jokes Too. That's Part Of My Audience. Part Of My Audience Is The People Who Will Only Get Certain Things.