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26 dga quarterly PHOTOS: (LEFT TO RIGHT) FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES, BRIAN DAVIS, MARIO ANZUONI/REUTERS/CORBIS KIMBERLY PEIRCE War Cries "It's my process: I go out into the world and I start a documentary so that I can then make a fiction. My fiction has to be inspired by the truth," says Peirce, who pre- fers bankrolling the research phase herself. "I've found that's the only way to wake up in the morning and be creative. I find in the initial phases you have to just do it. And later when it came to selling her story of war veterans coming home, Stop-Loss, to Hollywood, she realized an- other key use for all her pre-shot material. She recalls thinking, "If I just send them the script, they won't understand it. I have all this footage. Why not give them the energy of the movie? So we cut together this five-minute trailer and it was great." KEVIN SMITH Dirty Movies "You know, I was never class clown, I was never the one in school that every- one said, 'That's funny, dude.'" And it's not like Smith ever planned on becoming a director. The do-it-yourself ethos that fu- eled Clerks suggested that he took on that particular role just because he could, or had to. It was definitely a case of on-the-job training. "I would just set up the camera and let [stuff] happen in front of it, because that's what [Jim] Jarmusch did in Stranger Than Paradise. Or at least that's what I thought Jarmusch was doing in that film. Of course, in his film it's actually very deliberate; a very specific thing, and very composed. He makes it look effortless." Smith admits Clerks was a fantastic call- ing card movie, "but it's funny, because I look at it now and I'm just like, 'Man, I want to re-shoot that.' I didn't know what to do with the camera. There's no coverage whatsoever." ® TOM McCARTHY Accidental Director On films like The Station Agent, The Visitor and Win Win, the key to Mc- Carthy's directorial approach is his collab- orative work with actors, a generosity born of his own ongoing career in front of the camera. "Being an actor makes me sympa- thetic and understanding of how much a director can help or get in the way. Writer- directors can sometimes be too precious with their work, cutting off the greatest resource—which is good actors! Most very good actors like to be directed. They want to get lost. Our job [as directors] is helping them maintain their place. "For me, it's always about improving, how to get better. That helps determine where I go next, whether it's playing with a bigger story, or bigger worlds. Look at Ang Lee, he's made some interesting choices, he's zigged and zagged. It comes down to what I'm excited about. How do I stay true to what I want to do and stay flexible to great possibilities? It's a challenging but exciting place to be creatively." "For me, being a director is about being so emotionally centered in the material you can throw anything at me and I fundamentally know where I stand be- cause I'm so inside of it." INDEPENDENT VOICES