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DGA QUARTERLY 89 directors from around the world, you meet and give one another the secret handshake and you see that you're all part of the same whole. It's merely that you parachuted into di erent countries when you were born. So I adore the brother- and sisterhood of fi lm- makers, and I'm very proud of what the DGA does and what it stands for. Regarding process, some directors are very planned out. Kubrick would be an ex- treme example. Scorsese was known early on for storyboarding all of his scenes and having actors hit their marks. How do you stand on that? I never storyboard, although I had to story- board somewhat for Downsizing because of visual e ects and planning for many things. I've probably said this before, but as you see in the [documentary] Mystery of Picasso, he simply says, "I'm going to make a paint- ing now," puts the brush in the paint and starts painting, and something emerges. On the other hand, you have Edward Hop- per, who toward the end of his life would spend months conceiving a painting, doing some sketches and then fi nally executing his painting. I'm somewhere in the middle. It sure calms the nerves if you're prepared. You walk onto the set with a little spring in your step and tell everyone, "This is what we're doing today." On the other hand, I wish every day on the set in its own way to be as spontaneous as a day of writing or a day of painting, so that it's alive and you discover new things. And not just in writing and not just in directing, but even now in editing, putting two pieces of fi lm together I never could have imagined. And then through putting the music, and what [composer] Rolfe [Kent's] going to do with this fi lm, and then even in the mix. And in color timing. Each day brings discovery. Are you bringing in somebody like Rolfe Kent from the beginning? It is to both of our benefits to get started early. Sketching out strategy, themes. One of the main reasons I like Rolfe Kent's music is that it provides melodies. I accuse much of contemporary scores of not having melodies. I like melodies that I can hum later. And you don't fi nd that in many scores anymore. Tell me about what you're working on now, Downsizing. It imagines what might happen if, as a pana- cea to overpopulation and climate change, Norwegian scientists discover how to shrink people down to fi ve inches tall, and propose it very earnestly to the world as the only hu- mane, inclusive and practical solution to our biggest problem. The script shows the in- troduction of the idea to the world and then picks up the story about 15 years later, when it's still early into the idea. One would assume you're dealing with things you haven't dealt with before, like certain types of special effects. Do you consider this using a new cinematic lan- guage for you? Well, I hope to use some new cinematic lan- guage in every fi lm I make. I think every fi lm I make is practicing scales for the ones that follow. [Downsizing] has a science fiction premise, but like a lot of good science fic- tion, it's merely an excuse to enter a certain world and talk about certain things. Once we get into the world, it's still [co-screenwriter] Jim [Taylor] and my sense of humor and sensibilities, and we're mostly just interest- ed in the people. Was there a learning curve involved? Visual effects was something new to me. I mean, I had been using visual effects for years to remove the boom mic from shots, or to speed things up, slow things down, like editors do all the time now. But full-on visual e ects were new to me—it's a new set of tools. But it shouldn't freak anybody out. I have a great visual effects supervisor, whom I've instructed to trick me as much as possible into thinking I'm making a real movie. And so he's doing a real good job of it. Regarding your education, was there a reason you chose the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television over some other fi lm schools that accepted you? I picked UCLA because the students are freer to make any fi lms they want to make. At USC a student told me, "You should come here, it's just like Hollywood." And at UCLA a student said, "Why would you want to go to USC? It's just like Hollywood." I'm not saying that makes it better or worse, it's just designed that way. [At UCLA] everyone is trained to be an auteur, where you learn to write, direct and edit. At USC, as at AFI, they separate you or encourage you to choose a discipline within fi lmmaking, cinematography or production. One of the greatest things for me was having access to the UCLA Film & Television Ar- chive. And one of the reasons it took me six years to get out of fi lm school is that when I should have been editing, I was spending too many hours in 1409, now called the [James] Bridges Theater, watching movies. Any film student will tell you that, ulti- mately, no film school is really great, or as great as you hope it is when you're applying to it. What is great about any fi lm school is that you're in a conservatory and surrounded by other people who, like you, are eating, drink- ing, breathing fi lm—all young people in their 20s who are movie crazy. You all work on each other's fi lms and develop friendships and ca- maraderie through fi lm. And the other thing is, of course, the old cliché—having access to equipment. You mentioned sitting in the editing room with your editor. The same with writing. You choose to be in the same room with Jim Taylor—how does that work? We talk. We think about what could happen next. One or the other takes a crack at it, a page or two or three. And the other one says, "Here, let's have a look." Then we rewrite to- gether and begin anew. We're making it out of whole cloth. At least with editing we've got stuff to look at and criticize. Similar processes, but that's an im- portant di erence. Writing is starting from nothing. It's di cult and time-consuming. Since you once aspired to be a journalist, or at least that was a career option that you seriously considered after Stanford, is there a feature documentary in your future? Yes. For many filmmakers, making docu- mentaries is a steppingstone to making features, and I am feeling the opposite. We spend so much time and money and e ort trying to re-create reality on screen when actual reality surrounds us everywhere. After directing any movie, I always think, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 57