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I'm not afraid of a big studio film; I trust my instincts. But for me, it's not really about box office. It's about looking back on your work and not having to apologize for it.
All these experiments I've done over the years with technology have been asking whether I can tell stories that affect humans in a deeper way than I could without the technology.
There's no continuity in videos... you can jump around all over the place. In features, you can't throw in a close-up of a musician stomping on a guitar - you have to film a scene.
When the protagonist breaks the fourth wall by looking at the camera in a movie, it's generally been used for comedic purposes, rather than feeling like they're looking into your soul.
I know a lot of people who enjoy rap music who aren't black. You can't just say it's black music. To segregate films the way Hollywood likes to segregate films, ultimately everyone loses.
In virtual reality, it's more about capturing and creating worlds that people are inhabiting. You really are a creator in the way the audience lives within the world that you are building.
In virtual reality, we're placing the viewer inside a moment or a story... made possible by sound and visual technology that's actually tricking the brain into believing it's somewhere else.
So much of journalism is conveying a place and time that existed, to someone at a later date: giving a person the context and trying to make them feel as informed as if they were actually there.
It's incredible what happens when you explain to kids what good food is - they get so excited! They go home and tell their parents... and they're excited to cook the recipes themselves in class.
I think there's a little bit of a danger of a hype machine that puts forth a whole bunch of experiences that aren't great, and then a whole bunch of audience comes and don't have great experiences.
Hip hop has been an integral part of my life and my whole career. I started off doing videos with Ice Cube, and Dre, and Mary J. Blige, and TLC. So I've been involved in hip hop since the beginning.
I had all these tapes in my closet that I had shot years ago with my friend Jean-Michel Basquiat. I was working on a film about him when he died, and then I just put everything away. It was too sad.
Your head is a stereo input. The density and cartilage of your ears embed certain extra characteristics into stereo sound sources. Your brain decodes that and gives you sound plus conscious directions.
There's nothing in the street Looks any different to me And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye And the parting on the left Is now the parting on the right And the beards have all grown longer overnight.
When people ask whether virtual reality will be a real thing or just the next 3D, what I always say is, 'Take a headset, walk outside, and the next person you meet, put it on them and see what the reaction is.'
I actually didn't really start to get into the research of film until I was much older. I decided I wanted to direct a lot earlier than I started to do the research, which is really strange, but it is the case.
There's three things that you need for virtual reality to work. You need the hardware that's affordable and doesn't make people sick, you need an audience that is willing to pay for it, and you need the content.
Video games as a storytelling medium are, from a mathematical standpoint, a branching narrative. You start at one place, you can go in multiple different directions, and there's a multitude of different endings.
Getting four people awake, fed, dressed, and out the door on time is a challenge. Add to that making a school lunch, and you can tilt over the edge. Unless you are well prepared and have a simple method to follow.
I was doing well in TV as a freelance cameraman, but it wasn't the direction I wanted to go in. I directed videos and tried to put something cinematic in every one. Dialogue, action sequences, helicopter, Steadicam.
Virtual reality is already affecting people on an emotional level much more than any other media, and it has the potential to scale: all you need is an attachment for your cellphone, and you can have this experience.
Virtual reality started for me in sort of an unusual place. It was the 1970s. I got into the field very young: I was seven years old. And the tool that I used to access virtual reality was the Evel Knievel stunt cycle.
What do I bring to a film? I think, maybe, I know for a fact that I focus on connection of character; I focus on warmth and a heart, but I don't know if it's because I'm African American or because I'm crazy -who knows.
Every digital video player - RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, Vevo, Hulu, YouTube - all of them had different ways of getting you the video, but it was still always the same series of rectangles. The format never changed.
I take nothing away from my existence in the 'hood, because it sharpened my instincts. We had a different way of living that developed our survival instincts, and I use those to this day when I make films. You can't buy that.
Everybody comes to film differently; everybody has different backgrounds. Just find whatever your lane is naturally. Don't try to force yourself into someone else's vision or try to tell a story that you're not passionate about.
When you look at someone good like J.J. Abrams who gives you the spectacle and great action set pieces but also gives you character and great story and plotting and narrative, I think it's my job - and my intention - to do both.
We're creating a different universe with different rules and a different tone and different villains. We were very careful to honor the iconography of Spider-Man, but we wanted to tell it in a new and different way [in the film].
Romance: That's one of the things that makes Spider-Man really unique, in terms of the comic books. There is a tender, romantic quality to it. And certainly, that's something that's always fascinated me about the cinema: good romance.
In 1983, I was working at an art gallery in Los Angeles and going to film school at Los Angeles City College. At that time, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a young painter and was visiting L.A. for his first show at the Larry Gagosian Gallery.
What if instead of seeing a neighborhood that reminds you of the place you grew up in, you see your actual neighborhood? The data exists. The technology exists. It's just a matter of sourcing it and processing it in a compelling fashion.
How do you make it to the top when all you have is ambition and talent? You believe in yourself and surround yourself with other idealistic and talented friends that fuel each other and push against the establishment to take you seriously.
Working with the actors, working with production designers, working with the creative people who surround the process is really fun, it's really inspiring and I take great pleasure in working with them. That's what's most fun about directing.
'Straight Outta Compton' is my first biopic, my first period piece, and I got a chance to kind of get out there like some of my idols, you know, like Scorsese, Spielberg, Spike Lee, the guys who came before me. You know, I'm feeling good about it.
It connects humans to other humans in a profound way that I've never seen before in any other form of media. And it can change people's perception of each other. And that's how I think virtual reality has the potential to actually change the world.
I knew a bit about the capabilities of HTML5 and have always had a preoccupation with technology. I wanted to delve deeper, to see what else it could do. The technology becomes the palette that you make the artwork with, your palette and your paint.
I taught a master class in film in France, and that was a great experience because I got a chance to study the French film culture and the French film history, so to add... just to expand myself just personally and professionally was really helpful.
With Street View, you're curating a data set capable of incredible emotional resonance for the person interacting with it because everyone grew up somewhere. And if your house is in this dataset, that's going to provide some emotional context for you.
I think one of the things about Peter Parker that is so great, and what has made him and Spider-Man last so long is he is a kid that we all feel connected to, he's not an alien, he's not a millionaire, he's just this kid that has trouble asking girls out.
I understand that in some families both parents have to work, so the kids are home alone eating more processed foods. But if the kids know how to make oatmeal or eggs in the morning or pasta or a lentil soup at night - we're giving them real survival tools.
If you think you are a filmmaker... make a film, and then show it. You need to be able to finish what you started so it is presentable. When you screen it and see if your film has an effect on an audience, you will understand what it means to be a filmmaker.
With virtual reality, I'm not interested in the novelty factor. I'm interested in the foundations for a medium that could be more powerful than cinema, than theatre, than literature, than any other medium we've had before to connect one human being to another.
When you start directing movies at the age of 24, you're just a kid, you don't necessarily even have the experiences to add to the story, you're working off of instinct and raw emotions and raw talent, and hopefully it's the same trajectory as growing as a person.
When you start directing movies at the age of 24, you're just a kid; you don't necessarily even have the experiences to add to the story. You're working off of instinct and raw emotions and raw talent, and hopefully it's the same trajectory as growing as a person.
I have this concept that I call 'Combo Meals.' The idea is that I start with the kids' meal and then add a few more ingredients, and it becomes the adult meal. This way I'm not making two entirely separate dishes. I'm just simply adding on to what I'm already making.
My premise is that there's something hardwired into our DNA, that we as a species came and evolved from caves and clans and tribes, and therefore, we as a species care more about the things that are local to us than we care about the things that are 'over there' from us.
I love a challenge. So when I did 'Friday,' I didn't want to do another comedy back-to-back. With 'Set It Off,' that was a little different from 'The Negotiator' and 'The Italian Job.' So for me, it's all about challenge. It's all about challenge and about just learning.
I think that Spider-Man is a part of our culture. He's a perennial character. He's something that's constantly reexamined and there are so many versions of him in the comics that it was something that I thought that we could do cinematically. He belongs on the big screen.
Geeks are running the world, anyone who's seen The Social Network knows the dynamic has shifted, but what I think is iconic and timeless about Peter Parker is that he's an outsider, on the outside looking in, and that was something I thought was very important to protect.
What's so fun when you shoot in a car is you get to research all the other road movies that have ever been done, and you try to figure out where do they place the cameras and how many shots can you get with your people in the car. So just doing the research on the films is so fun.