I never think about it much, the visual aspect of it, until we start making the movie. I don't really think about it when we write. When we finish, and I start putting the film together, and we pick the locations, I do think about that a lot.
I don't really think about a visual aspect to the work at all; I just think about making the piece. And everything that occurs visually comes out of the subject matter you are dealing with so that I find it difficult to treat the visual element as a separate entity.
When we think about a great movie, I mean, what do we think about? We think about story, we think about character. And when the visual effects aren't perfect, we forgive it.
When I have to score a film, I watch the movie first and then start thinking about it. And from that moment on, it is as if I were pregnant. I then have to deliver the child, so from that moment on, I think always about the music - even when I go to the grocery store, I think about it.
The first thing that happens is the cleansing of the former character. I don't think a lot of actors talk about it, but there is usually a process where you essentially purge yourself of the character played prior to the movie. Then you want to think about what the character represents, and you write down all of the elements about this character and then take the time to find some synchronicity and start breathing the character.
I always think that you finish one movie, you start a new one, and you think, 'OK. I did that last one. Now I've learned. I know how this works.' Then by the end of the movie, you think, 'No, I don't, really.'
I start a picture and I finish it. I don't think about art while I work. I try to think about life.
It doesn't really matter to me whether you start or not. I play a lot of fourth quarters. I think that's what's most important to me. I think that's what I've always cared about, just having an opportunity to finish games when it's really winning time.
Learn a lot about the world and finish things, even if it is just a short story. Finish it before you start something else. Finish it before you start rewriting it. That's really important.
It's to find out if you're going to be a writer or not, because that's one of the most important lessons.
Most, maybe 90% of people, will start writing and never finish what they started. If you want to be a writer that's the hardest and most important lesson: Finish it. Then go back to fix it.
I would tell players to relax and never think about what's at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you've lost your focus.
I may film scenes I had no intention of filming; things suggest themselves on location, and we improvise. I try not to think about it too much. Then, in the cutting room, I take the film and start to put it together, and only then do I begin to get an idea of what it is about.
The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day ... you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don't think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.
I never start out with any kind of connecting theme or plan. Everything just falls the way it falls. I don't ever think about what kind of fiction I write or what I am writing about or what I am trying to write about. When I'm writing, what I do is I think about a story that I want to tell.
I like movies that interest me and stories that interest me, I don't think about how much money it's gonna [cost] to make the movie, I don't think about any of that. I think about certain aspects like who's making the movie and who's gonna tell a story that I wanna be involved in, but I don't have that choice and I never have.
If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with blackness; I wouldn’t start with gender; I wouldn’t start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life, which is that I’m a seeker on the path. I think of feminism, and I think of anti-racist struggles as part of it. But where I stand spiritually is, steadfastly, on a path about love.
And when you start to think about death, you start to think about what's after it. And then you start hoping there is a God. For me, it's a frightening thought to go nowhere. I also can't believe that people like Stalin and Hitler are gonna go to the same place as Mother Teresa.
When you're a kid, you learn whatever your parents think until you start taking in media. Because all your friends are your age as well, media is the third parent that you ever have. So I think about that a lot, what visual imagery is teaching us, and media in general having a huge impact.