The informing idea of what you want to say and do, that's what will take you from film school to professional - the idea. That's what is original to you.
No, it's interesting to remake a film for the contemporary audience today. I think it's a good idea; it needs to respect the original idea. Don't just take the title and change everything else.
Similarities in the vampire genre are so rampant that there's really no such thing as an original idea - only an original take on an idea that's been done before.
The business side of film has goofed up so many things, but even that's changing. It happened to the music industry and now it's happening to the film studios. It's crazy what's going on. But artists should have control of their work; especially if, as I always say, you never turn down a good idea and never take a bad idea.
The original idea of being anonymous - it was a great, naive idea on paper in 2008, not knowing to what degree we'd be touring or to what extent this was going to be a professional operation. That regimen is very hard to live by. What I hadn't foreseen was the fans and their willingness to embrace that and play along.
Those that only take a nibble here and a nibble there will never attain anything ... Those who really want to be yogis must give up, once and for all, this nibbling at things. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea.
An idea you have might not be original. But by creating a novel out of that idea you can make it original.
People don't understand this: Ideas are important, but they're not essential. What's essential and important is the execution of the idea. Everyone has had the experience of seeing a movie and saying, "Hey! That was my idea!" Well, it doesn't mean anything that you had that idea. There's no such thing as an original concept. What's original is the way you re-use ancient concepts.
The real truth - like anything, you have an idea about something you might write and it changes. People reflect on it or you get other ideas and maybe your original idea is radically different than how it ends up being. It's not a theorem. You don't sit down and prove something. You start with an initial idea and it grows and grows. The math of the narrative changes. In some ways your original document and what the film ends up being are quite different.
You never want to have a movie be derivative, because that's the worst if you ask me. I always want to be in original material, or an original idea, or an original vision, rather than a rehash of some other movie.
The Sophists had this idea: Forget this idea of what's true or not—what you want to do is rhetoric; you want to be able to persuade the audience and have the audience think you're smart and cool. And Socrates and Plato, basically their whole idea is, "Bullshit. There is such a thing as truth, and it's not all just how to say what you say so that you get a good job or get laid, or whatever it is people think they want.
If you come up with the original idea on your laptop, anything else is an embellishment of that idea. It's nice to have the option to mix inside a big studio, but at the end of the day, it comes from an original spark, which often happens while sitting on the couch.
The way Fatboy Slim layers motifs is the same as 18th-century baroque counterpoint. You have an idea, then you have an answer to the idea in another voice, then you have a counter idea accompanying the original idea, and you build up your texture like that. I'm really into Kruder and Dorfmeister at the moment, and they do the same thing.
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.
Modern technology has taken the angst out of achieving the perfect shot. For me, the only thing that counts is the idea behind the image: what you want to see and what you're trying to say. The idea is crucial. You have to think of something you want to say and expand upon it.
You want an idea about what you can say. I know it sounds like a bad idea but here's specifically why its actually a great one. You want to sound crazy but you want to ask to be right.
I really challenge every actor at the beginning of a process, and I always say, 'I have an idea that I'm going to bring to the table. I hope and expect that you will have an idea and bring it to the table. But the way I really want to work is that together we're going to have a third idea that is better than either of our ideas.'