When we first made this whole idea this was going to be calling card film [Moon] and it was going to give the opportunity to make my first feature film. But it turned out a lot better, we just couldn't stop ourselves from going into it, and we are very proud that it turned into something that people wanted to see.

Duncan Jones

Categorized in : Ideas Opportunity Moon

The films that I loved growing up were the science fiction films from the late seventies and early eighties [films], which were more about the people and how they are affected by the environments that they are in. Whether they are sort of futuristic or alien of whatever they are; that was the science fiction that I loved. So that is what we tried to make, the sort of film that felt like those old films.

Duncan Jones

growing-up people fiction

I'm not Akira Kurosawa. He used to write...He used to write a completely new spec script over a couple of nights. I'm not like that. It takes me a long time to put a film together that I want to make.

Duncan Jones

couple writing night

For me, two of my favourite science fiction films are Blade Runner, which is fantastic, and Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys. Both of those were smart science fiction films hitting more of a medium budget, and I desperately hope there is an audience for that kind of film because I would love that to be my next film, on that kind of scale.

Duncan Jones

blade-runner smart two

As soon as I finished film school I was thinking about, how do I get to feature films? It took about eight years, and I'm still working. Feature films was not the end goal. Feature films was one of the stages. Getting to the point of the Coen brothers or Tarantino, where you're writing your own material and have the budget to do it properly, that's the end goal, and I'm close to that.

Duncan Jones

brother writing school

I want to do my Blade Runner, which is like a future Berlin film, which is like a thriller, but it's much deeper characters, I think.

Duncan Jones

blade-runner character thinking

Hopefully, if I have done my job right, people will want to know and see more! There is certainly plenty more to tell. I would love to be part of that process of expanding on the lore that makes up Warcraft, but it will all depend on what you, the audience, think of our first film!

Duncan Jones

jobs people thinking

Every film I try and make it the way I see it in my head, and it really just depends on the script and the people I'm working with or whatever interests me at that particular time.

Duncan Jones

trying people way

I really don't see CG as a goal in its own right. I really do believe it's a tool. In the advertising industry I did a fair amount of CG, so I appreciate it for the tool that it is, and I think technologically where it's at now, you really can achieve most of your visual goals with either it or a mixture of it and practical effects.

Duncan Jones

appreciate believe thinking

Life and career kind of catches up with you.

Duncan Jones

careers kind

When I was a kid and I was being introduced to science fiction by watching movies with my Dad, Kubrick is one of those guys that we used to watch, you know, I watched Clockwork Orange at an age that was incredibly inappropriate, but he sat there with me and he explained what was going on and you know, I came to appreciate it even if I was terrified at the time.

Duncan Jones

orange dad kids

In my opinion, having worked in the games industry and still keeping in touch with a lot of those guys, there was definitely a time when they saw themselves as the little brother of the film industry. But they kind of went off in a different direction and now see themselves, I think, as being far more interesting and ahead of the film industry. They haven't just caught up. They've gone off in a different direction and exceeded the film industry.

Duncan Jones

brother interesting thinking

The beauty of science fiction is its open canvas. You can hypothesize about any element of the world. It doesn't have to be laser battles and things exploding, you can be JG Ballad and maybe just change one little thing about the real world and that becomes science fiction.

Duncan Jones

battle real littles

Sometimes there's a disjoint between what works on the page and what works with visual story telling.

Duncan Jones

pages stories sometimes

I want to have the illegitimate child of independent film making and the budget to make it. That's my aspiration.

Duncan Jones

independent want children

Fantasy films tend to skew towards what Tolkien fantasy was, which is that the humans, the Hobbits and the cute creatures are the good guys, and everything that's ugly are the bad guys.

Duncan Jones

ugly guy cute

One of the biggest changes for me on a practical level of shooting the film was having a second unit.

Duncan Jones

shooting film levels

Sam Rockwell has a fantastic sense of rhythm.

Duncan Jones

rhythm fantastic

You are spending millions and millions of dollars of other peoples money when you make a movie. You have to at least approach it in a way where you can see how you can make that money back for the people who are investing.

Duncan Jones

investing dollars people

Every time you want to reset your set and pull walls out and reset the lighting, you're burning up half an hour to an hour, and when you're trying to keep to a schedule, you're constantly having to reassess what's worth it and what you're going to have to give up in order to keep on schedule.

Duncan Jones

wall giving-up order

I think I was brought up with games and I don't think that they're just Pac-Man or Space Invaders. I think we've moved on, I think that there are stories being told and worlds being explored.

Duncan Jones

games men thinking