I don't want the people I'm with on this journey to feel like I'm filming them all the time. I don't want them to constantly feel as though they're being watched. So I will have the camera ready at all times, but I will only film when something is really worth filming. Those are the moments when the person being filmed is usually not aware of it.
I try to make films where the audience forgets the filmmaking and gets engrossed in the story as it unfolds. I don't want them to ever feel bored, or that they're being told what to think, or to feel depressed. I don't like films about victims - I want to celebrate brave survivors like Brenda and the wonderful women in the film.
I don't make 'issue' films. I like making films about rebels or pioneers or people that are doing something.
I want every scene to feel electric and I try to finish the filming period with a clear trajectory: a beginning, a middle, and hopefully an end.I hate "fly on the wall." It infers that I don't relate to the people we're with and that I don't get affected by events. I like it when people talk to me. I never say things like "Don't look at the camera" - how bossy!
People want black and white answers, but it's not one thing or another. I think the only way we're going to make good things is to inspire people and make them feel as though what they're watching is real.
I don't have any advice at all. I think we all make the films that reflect the kind of people we are; we all make such different films. There's not just one way of doing it.
The biggest misconception about me is perhaps that I film all the time and film everything randomly. The truth is I film very little and always when something excites me and seems to mean something for the film.
The magic of documentary is that I keep being surprised and amazed by the things I film.
It makes it very easy. I have a beginning, middle, and end, and I don't film for long - about 20 hours usually for a two-hour film - so it's easily watchable in a week for me and the editor. Once I know who the characters are, I only film those characters, unless somebody else forces their way into the film by a scene happening to them or we meet them by chance.
It's always scary making a film as I never set anything up or ask anyone to do anything, so I worry that we'll find a story. I have to trust that a film will come out of the journey we embark on. I have many, many sleepless nights.
Those are the films I want to make. I don't want to make a film about, "Oh, those poor prostitutes!" Or "Oh, isn't it terrible in Chicago!" I want to make a film where people think, "Brenda's like me!"
Personally, I don't like watching films about victims - people where you're meant to think, 'Oh, this is terrible,' and you go home feeling really depressed.
I meet all these American filmmakers that film for months and months, and it's a mystery to me. I couldn't make a film like that. I have to be very clear in what I'm doing and where it's going, and be very disciplined about what I film.
I know that sounds contradictory - you're going on a journey, but once you know who your characters are, you become more disciplined and you film less and less.
There's no point in making something if you're not falling in love with the people you're filming and you want them to really enjoy you being around. It would be weird if, when you're making a film, you don't think it's going to be the best ever or the worst ever - I guess it goes from one feeling to another.
I'm not generalizing anymore about men and women, because I think these old terms of "masculine" and "feminine" are going very fast with the rise of transgender rights that are questioning what all these categories are.
I watch mainly fiction. The films I like watching are films where you see people change, like with Boyhood. You see a moment in someone's life where it's a breakthrough. For me, the breakthrough in Boyhood is that amazing moment right at the end when he finds somebody he can feel relaxed with, and who will maybe be a friend for the rest of his life. I like that it doesn't end in a love affair or marriage. It just ends in, "Wow, I found people I can relate to for the first people in my life. These people accept me, I like them."
I remember very clearly when I found my first soulmate, it was actually in my late 20s, that wonderful feeling of being accepted by people.
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