Usually you talk about directors in terms of the way they choose camera lenses or a kind of light to create a certain effect. But to me the most valuable commodity for a movie to create is a feeling of life, and that's what A Hard Day's Night has in spades.
Basically, when I look at my life, I think I'm lucky to be given the opportunities I've had.
I come from a background of hanging out with friends and shooting videos with them, with funny stuff coming out of the group. I guess we got the same charge jocks get out of sports.
And shooting things in a documentary style was a good way to create tension and energy without money.
If you blithely do what you do and you're good at what you do, and try to be a decent person, you can succeed.
Knowing what I do now, I don't know if I'd ever have the balls to go to film school, with no connections and no knowledge of the business side at all.