As a writer and storyteller it was necessary for me to adapt to the film making discipline because motion pictures reach more people than any cultural medium other than music. Besides, I too have always loved the movies.
For centuries music was humanity’s universal language, but in the past hundred years movies have expanded the vocabulary. Movies possess even more potential to communicate, because they can utilize images as well as music.
Now, thanks to the digital age, a motion picture that I post on my website this morning can span the globe almost instantaneously. For an individual to have so much range to communicate is unprecedented. A film of mine can play in every corner of the world and be watched by individuals whose daily preoccupations are utterly different from my own.
I think of someone who may be illiterate, they may be deaf, mute, or all of the above. For that matter they could have only one eye and still watch my movie. I think of that person when making my films.
If this individual has just wandered into the most far-flung Internet cafe on the planet and discovered my movie playing, what should they come away with? What should I tell them? I will remind them how much we rely on each other for our survival and confirm to them that their passionate participation in community is essential if we are to thrive as a species. It is a profound responsibility to be alive and making movies at this critical juncture in our history.