Now Tarantino is making DJANGO UNCHAINED. Everybody is telling me I am in the movie but I've not been asked by Tarantino officially. Not yet. There were many, many other Django films following mine, with other actors and directors, but there is only one Django.
I shot 'Fruitvale Station' on super-16, and then I shot a movie called 'The Harvest' on 35mm, and then I shot 'Little Accidents' on 2-perf 35.
We shot the first season of 'Hap and Leonard' towards the end of the summer in Louisiana, in and around Baton Rouge. If anyone's been to Louisiana or comes from Louisiana, they know what the weather's like down there at that time of year: it's unbearably hot for an Englishman.
I've been in love with basketball from the moment I shot my first shot, hanging out with my father. When I was a kid I would stay in the gym waiting for my dad to finish practicing. I was just shooting.
If I'm ever working on a set and anyone talks about a master shot, I say there is no master shot. Before I even went to film school, I learned about movies by being in a British feature film, where everything was shot master shot, mid-shot, close-up. But I reject the idea of a master shot. You don't shoot everything mechanically; you find imaginative ways that serve the action.
There's only one shot you have at a movie, and that's your best shot. If you can't give it that, don't go. They're paying you! You gotta do a job for them.
With 'Django Unchained,' when you're dealing with slavery, it's like a gymnastics routine with the highest amount of difficulty. Quentin Tarantino is not going to do a movie that's just going to lay there and be safe. There's going to be twists and flips.
With Django Unchained, when you're dealing with slavery, it's like a gymnastics routine with the highest amount of difficulty. Quentin Tarantino is not going to do a movie that's just going to lay there and be safe. There's going to be twists and flips.
I liked the idea of creating a new pop-culture, folkloric hero character that I created with 'Django' that I think's gonna last for a long time. And I think as the generations go on and everything, you know, my hope is it can be a rite of passage for black fathers and their sons. Like, when are they old enough to watch 'Django Unchained'?
To decide to film a movie again shot by shot, you must be masochistic to a certain degree because it is a much greater challenge.
I cut the scene out, but there was a moment where Christoph Waltz plays the piano in 'Django [Unchained]' - Jamie [Foxx] is a magnificent piano-player but there's never a moment where Django plays the piano.
Maybe if I'd gone in younger, I wouldn't have had that feeling, but I've seen an enormous amount of changes since the early-'70s in how this stuff is shot. I did the first TV movie ever shot in 18 days; before this film the normal length of shooting a TV movie was between 21 and 26 days. We shot a full-up, two-hour TV movie in 18 days with Donald Sutherland playing the lead, who had never worked on television before.
To have a second movie that you're proud of and that actually turned out the way you wanted, shot by shot, I realize I'm probably going to be able to do this for a little while for my living.
I'm not a big fan of shooting something that looks like it could belong in any movie. I'm not a fan of, okay, 'wide shot, wide shot, medium shot, close-up, close-up - we'll figure it out in post.' I hate that.
It comes to the point where, if a midrange shot is there, I'm going to take it. If I'm open, I have to shoot that shot. That's a great shot for the team and myself.
I'd describe 'Psych' as 'Real Genius' meets 'Django Unchained.'