You do understand that you can’t force the situation, but in terms of how you edit, you can define that to take the audience along, whether it be a storyline or a character moment that we can play out. The more experience you’ve had, the more beneficial it is, period.
The interesting thing about movies, it’s not always – y’know, you have to have structure etc and all those things, but an audience responds, in many ways, we walk away and certain things stay in our heads that are memorable.
I’m fascinated by documentaries, to begin with. Because of the nature of television, as opposed to theatrical, documentaries can be in this long form and take you on a journey.
Ronald Reagan was this actor who was going to be president, and he was very charming. What he had was, he talked about America in ways that got people all caught up in it. He was creating this America – it could even be the mythical “America” – that we subscribe to.
I’ve had a lot of movies that didn’t get great numbers on test screening, but a lot of times the film was able to survive, or the studio still stayed and supported it.
We’re never going to be the ultimate-insider look. You can do 50 insider looks at this Hollywood business, and the satire didn’t intrigue me. I think others can do that.
