It seems like studios and networks only greenlight stuff that has familiarity to them. If you can be like, 'Oh, it's 'Workaholics,' but it's Asian girls,' they're like, 'Yeah, we've got it. We know exactly what the show is. It's greenlit.'
I don't like making fake things. And digital images that look like fake paintings disturb me. But when they don't look fake, I don't really have a problem with it. You're not looking at an original piece of art anyway: when it gets scanned for printing it becomes digital.
I don't want to only make the movies that studios will greenlight.
Don't forget, I've been fired by studios; I'm not the studio's guy. I'm a guy who can work with studios, but if you ask any studio, I stand up to these people.
I don't do anything digital. Everything is analog, and that's a limitation for me. However, in my world, it's not a limitation at all because I don't create the type of music that would generally be created by musicians that work with digital recording studios, and/or digital equipment, as far as production is concerned.
I'm interested in the kind of anti-establishment ethos that goes with making an independent movie. I like to bring that to studio films - usually to the consternation of the studios.
I've had this opportunity to get some of my financing out of Europe, which has helped tremendously, so I'm not completely dependent on the studio system or on U.S. financing.
You never hear of a live-action studio that has been making so-so films looking over at a studio that's making great movies and going, 'Oh, we see the difference - we're using a different camera.'
'Hellraiser' was what 'Hellraiser' was. It was a $900k movie, and there wasn't anything I would have done differently. But 'Nightbreed' was taken away from me. It was thought that its meaning wasn't... Its meaning didn't chime with the producers.
I don't begrudge anyone else for anything, but to me, I think the fans deserve to have a studio put money behind their product because when the fans put money into a project and it makes any sort of money, it goes back to the studio. I think that's a little shady.
More women have to be in charge of studios, so that they can greenlight films with women.
I hate studios. A studio is a black hole. I never use a studio to work. It's very artificial to go to a studio to get new ideas. You have to get new ideas from life, not from the studio. Then you go to the studio to realize the idea.
I'm the type of person that doesn't like to wait for people to do things for me, and I never want to feel stuck. Why sit around and be like, 'I wish my label would book me some studio time,' if I can just buy my own studio equipment and figure out how to run Pro Tools and record it myself?
My engineer on the 'Life is Too $hort' album was Al Eaton. Al Eaton had a studio called One Little Indian Studios, and he was a pretty good guitar player. He would suggest certain songs. Al was the force behind 'Life is Too $hort' and definitely the force behind songs like 'The Ghetto.'
Studios were just run differently. There really was a head of a studio. There were people who loved their studios. Who worked for their studios and were loaned out to other people and everybody sort of got a piece. Well now there's a handful now.
I wish I had come along when the studios were making those big musical pictures. It would be great to do re-makes of some of the old ones like 'Porgy and Bess' or 'Showboat.' I'd love to do 'em.