A Quote by Duncan Jones
When we first made this whole idea this was going to be calling card film [Moon] and it was going to give the opportunity to make my first feature film. But it turned out a lot better, we just couldn't stop ourselves from going into it, and we are very proud that it turned into something that people wanted to see.
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When I said that something was going to cost a certain amount of money, I actually knew what I was talking about. The biggest problem that we were having on the financing front was people with lots of money saying "you need more money to make this film [Moon]," and us saying "no this is the first feature film we want to do it at a budget where we sort of prove ourselves at the starting end of making feature films; we can do this for $5 million." That is where the convincing part between me and Stuart came, we had to convince people with money that we could do it for that budget.
We had this idea, and I think a lot of people did going in, that you can make some short film and it's going to get industry attention and that's going to be your thing. And it was only later on at school that we realized that's very rare that a short film is going to capture the attention of anyone.
'Bubba Ho-Tep' was an accidental story that turned out to be my first film adaptation, and it's still going strong in story and film.
When I was going for my graduate degree, I decided I was going to make a feature film as my thesis. That's what I was famous for-that I had my thesis film be a feature film, which was 'You're a Big Boy Now.'
I pick my feature film battles very carefully. They're going to be personal and they're going to take a lot of my energy. I'm not going to be some big production company and be Jerry Bruckheimer or something like that. It doesn't interest me.
We made 'Mickey and the Bear' with barely any money with a first-time director, a first-time director of photography, and a crew who had just graduated from NYU film school. We were all very much in this together for the first time. There's no famous actor or big explosions. It's not a Marvel movie. I thought nobody was going to see this film.
It's quite interesting, looking back at the first one [film about Harry Potter], nobody knew whether or not it was going to be successful as a film. The books were of course already very successful, but that's happened before, where the books were successful and the films weren't at all. But it turned out that they were.
Number three, we're going to play very smart and we're not going to beat ourselves. If the other team is better than us and they just out execute us and play better then we can live with that, but we're going to play smart and give ourselves every opportunity to win the game.
I grew up in the '70s and in Los Angeles during the new blockbuster era. 'Star Wars' was the first film that I saw in the movie theater. I wanted to be an actor; then it turned out to be this 'Wizard of Oz' story: I was 10 or 11 years old, and it turned into something that I didn't think it was.
In 1982, fellow film student Amanda Richardson and I went to Greenham Common for the day - to see what was going on and to shoot some video. The day turned into a weekend, the weekend into seven months, and the dozens of hours of footage turned into a film - 'Carry Greenham Home.'
Going from a short to a feature is like going from crawling to flying. It's a big jump, really. Everything triples - size of crew, budget, shooting days, the cast. Not to mention the stakes - as a first time feature filmmaker so much rides on this film.
When we made 'Shaun of the Dead,' it was our first feature, and we were just lucky to make a film, full stop.
Going into my second film as a director, it's night and day of what it was like going into my first film. It doesn't matter what you know in your head and what you've been taught until you're there and doing it; it's a whole new ball game.
I may not get the opportunity to make movies for my whole life, but I'm going to make movies for the rest of my life. Maybe studios won't pay for it, but I'm going to do it because I love it. So, I just have to be proud of what I make, and what I'm trying to say in what I make. If people don't like it or people don't see it, that's beyond what I can control. I'm a storyteller, and people are going to listen or not and like it or not. That's only solidified over time.
I think the one that's going to be the hardest to make into a film is the one that's probably going to be made into a film, which is 'The Art of Racing in the Rain.' I mean, it's narrated by a dog. How do you do that? But hopefully we'll get to see.
'The Stepfather' was the first time I sort of carried a film, or led in a film, and doing it was fun, and I felt very special. Afterwards, though, I was terrified. I just thought, 'Wow, this is basically going to be about me. If this film is a success or a failure, a lot of it's on me!'
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