Zitat des Tages von Marshall Curry:
When I was in college, I majored in comparative religion because I really wanted to figure out if there was God and how I should live my life.
A lot of filmmaking is an endurance contest between you and the people you're filming. Every time that you relax, I promise you, something interesting will happen.
My understanding of environmentalism, of the things that radicalize people, of the ethics and effectiveness of different kinds of social protest have definitely become more nuanced and more informed, but they aren't much clearer.
I'm not a purist - I like films that are narrated and films that aren't, films that are beautiful and films that are clumsy but heartfelt. Mostly, I just like a good story and good characters.
When you are interviewing someone, never let your camera person turn off the camera. The second you turn off the camera, they'll say the magic thing that you'd been looking for the whole interview. People want to relax after the performance is done. Don't be afraid of awkward silence. That is your friend.
I find often I'm wandering around the park with my kids, and I notice something, and I think, 'Oh, I could come up with a clever Facebook post about that.' It's like, 'Wait a minute - that's not what I should be thinking. I should be present in the moment with my kids.'
When you work on something in an edit room with just a couple of other people, you never know how it is going to be received.
After college, I did a bunch of different jobs - taught English in Mexico, worked in public radio, worked for a web design company - but there was something about documentaries that really attracted me.
The first time you watch a movie that you like, all of the magic works on you. It's an experience of having a world unfold in front of you. But if you watch it again, you start to see where the seams are.
I'm not one of those people who sees documentaries as a stepping stone to doing fiction. I love documentaries and watch tons of documentaries. But, I like fiction films a lot, too.
I think I'm drawn to people who dream big, and both films have that. In 'Street Fight, Cory Booker wants to become Mayor of Newark, and in 'Racing Dreams,' three kids want to become NASCAR drivers.
I feel like people with their camera phones and Twitter and Facebook, this kind of question like, 'How can I be present and also document my presence or document what I'm doing?' is something that's always on my mind, even when I'm not working as a filmmaker.
In 2008, A.J. Schnack recruited Thom Powers to start the Cinema Eye Honors to recognize the artistry and craft that go into making documentary films.
