Neil Burger

Professions :

I think we all want something to knock us on the head and change... by Neil Burger

I think we all want something to knock us on the head and change our lives.

want-something want thinking

At a certain point, I got interested in set design for the theater. I was interested in architecture, but I was taking photographs at the same time, and architecture, though it had the design element, it didn't have the narrative, emotional element that I was looking to do. I ended up painting for a while. I was dancing around it, and I realized that all these different interests came together in filmmaking.

design emotional dancing

When I was younger, I wanted to own a circus and create this bizarre revue that went from town to town. And, I was interested in set design and doing theater. And then, I was painting for a while. It was all circling around creating an intense experience for an audience of one, or an audience of many.

audience-of-one creating design

I think it worked two ways. One, a lot of people writing about the movie used that as shorthand and it could either be a good thing or they could use it to dismiss the movie like we were a copycat movie or something like that. It's very much its own story. It is a young woman in a post-apocalyptic society, but after that it's just a whole different kind of story and a different journey that she goes through.

journey writing thinking

On one hand it's very flattering to be compared to a big success, and then sometimes it's very frustrating because you want people to see the movie that you're making and not be continually comparing it to something that it's not. So it goes both ways.

want hands people

But at a certain point you've gotta be ruthless with the movie because you can have these great scenes, but they aren't specifically building the story that needs to be built at that moment.

moments stories needs

It's like you might have some great scene that you love but for some reason - and you can't necessarily put your finger on it - the movie's not working or it seems slow or ponderous in some way, and even though it has your favorite scene in there, actually the favorite scene is the culprit. That's the painful thing about editing, is trying to locate those things that are holding the movie back and then having the guts to cut them. And it is painful to do it.

cutting editing trying

If a character is going to end up one way, you start them a certain way. If they're gonna end up the polar opposite of that, you might start them differently to have dramatic integrity to their journey.

journey integrity character

I'm working on a number of different things. I'm working on a couple of TV things and I'm working on a couple of film things too, and they're all very early stages. One of them I'm writing myself, one of them I'm writing with somebody else, and one of them I'm supervising a writer, and they're all sort of coming up at the same time and it'll be interesting to see which one kind of reveals itself first and jumps ahead.

couple writing numbers

To me, the movie is about power. by Neil Burger

To me, the movie is about power.

I always think about what's the difference between being tenacious and having an inability to learn from failures. The difference between the homeless guy who wanted to be a great painter and the guy who is a great painter could be anything.

great think always homeless

When I was younger, I wanted to own a circus and create this bizarre revue that went from town to town. I suppose, in a way, I got my wish because when you're working on a film, you're in a traveling circus.

own you wish way

I know the movies that I've liked, and I know the experience that they've given me, so the goal is always to try to create a movie that I would like myself and that would knock me out, challenge me or intrigue me in some way. That's been my criteria for figuring out what I want to do, or also when I'm writing something or creating a scene.

challenge myself me experience

I really love New York, and I've lived here for a long time. I know not just the different neighborhoods but the different kind of class cultures in New York from the up-and-coming, down-and-out kind of artist to the powerful worlds of finance.

finance time love long

Sometimes I feel like just to get all my own work done would be great. You always feel like you're behind, and they're six other things that you wish you could get to but you can't.

feel great you work

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