Zitat des Tages von James Wan:
So many movies get made, and so many go to VOD, which is a market I admire.
I guess I have a fascination with the idea of puppeteering. I think, in a lot of ways, directing is puppeteering. I guess I see a lot of analogies between what puppeteers and filmmakers do.
I think I'm a very sentimental person. Conscious or not, that's what draws me to the kind of films I want to make.
It's actually smarter to make a dumb film.
I love what I did in 'Death Sentence,' but that was a low budget action film.
I'm very heavily involved in the editorial post-production process, and the camera - it's just such a big part of my storytelling language. I like creating the tension; I like creating the emotion through the movement of my camera, or the lack of movement through my camera, depending on what fits the scene best.
If people want to watch a CG movie, there's plenty out there.
I've always wanted to do a world creation story and visually create this amazing, incredible, magical kingdom.
The kind of filmmaker that I am, even my darker horror films generally are still very fun. And I think that's important for me and the kind of films I make.
Aquaman's such an amazing character.
All my movies are about people with some ideology, but guess what? It never works out.
As a filmmaker, you aspire to want to make movies that can hopefully stand the test of time, but you never know when that will happen or if that will happen.
If I can get the audience to connect with the characters emotionally - and they love who they are, they love the larger-than-life situation that they're in, but most of all get the audience invested in the characters - then I always feel like I can sort of put them in the most outrageous circumstances, and the audience is okay to go with that.
'Saw' really came from that want, the aspiration to make a feature film on our own.
The size of the budget doesn't make that much of a difference because the kind of issues I have on a low budget film I I have on a big budget film as well, but they're just much bigger.
Still one of my favorite movies is the original 'The Haunting.' I love that style.
With 'The Conjuring,' I really wanted to create classical cinema-style film-making, pure cinema as it were.
'Poltergeist' was the film that scarred me for life. I saw it at such a young age - 5 or 6 years old - and it has one of the creepiest doll sequences with the clown, and ever since then, I've just been fascinated by dolls.
I love a ghost story. I think they affect me more than other people that are much more skeptical than I am. I think that it's good that I do buy into them to some degree.
With 'Insidious 2,' I wanted to push a potential franchise in the direction I thought it should go in.
It's very difficult to get an audience to be terrified of what's going on. Think about it: You're in a room with so many other people, so for them to be terrified and to care about what's going on on-screen takes a lot of work.
'Insidious' is independent. It's like the 'Clerks' of horror films, you know?
I love the idea of being the underdog, coming in with a take on this underdog character and completely blow people's expectations away. Like, 'Oh, you thought he was going to be a wimpy character? No no no.'
I loved 'Jaws.' I think that is not really a horror film, but it made me afraid of the ocean for a very long time.
I'm a big fan of cel animation, I'm a big fan of computer animation, and, most of all, I'm a big fan of stop-motion animation.
We live in a world that relies on technology.
There's two aspects of film crafting that I'm very strict about, and that's how I move my camera and where I cut the film.
I always say, what is cool for me with 'The Conjuring', is it's not just another scary set piece or another scary case; it's more about what I can do with the characters of Ed and Lorraine Warren.
One of the things I learned very early on is you need to cast the kids for the characters you want them to play. They need to be who they are, right? If you want a loud, boisterous kid character, you need to find that kid.
I am my own worst critic, and I look at 'Death Sentence' now, and I go, 'Oh wow, I have really come a long way.' In terms of a filmmaker, I feel like my filmmaking language has really matured.
I cannot state enough how important post-production is for the success of a horror movie. You bring so much to it with the way you edit it, the way it is sound-designed, and the way the music works with it.
If you care about the characters, then whatever scary thing happens to them, you feel it even more.
When you create those characters that people love and care about and put them in a dark hallway, already the audience is on edge, and they feel empathy for that character. Then it's up to me to decide what jumps out in that hallway. So I think laying that foundation of strong characters and strong story is the most important thing in a horror film.
My low-budget films, more than anything, taught me that you've got to create cool, likable characters and great stories because, if you don't, it doesn't matter how cool it might look - no one is going to care about it.
I remembered a long time ago when 'A League of Their Own' came out, and they had the opening sequence with an older Geena Davis. We all just thought it was amazing, but you find out it actually wasn't Geena Davis; it wasn't makeup. It was basically finding an actress that looked like her, and then Geena just dubbed her voice.
I come from a very straight and adjusted suburban background.
