Paul W. S. Anderson: I find it terribly distracting in movies when peo...

For me, it's a multitude of things. In the modern world, there's a real genuine fear of loss of individuality and I think the undead speak to that. I also think the idea of the dead coming back to life, and this unstoppable foe that just keeps coming and coming, but rather slowly just chases you, is a real primal fear. It's like a fear of claustrophobia, heights or water.

Paul W. S. Anderson

real loss thinking

The idea of doing a period movie, some people say, "Isn't it odd that you're doing a period movie? That's a change of pace for you." And, I'm like, "Not really." When you're doing a science fiction movie, it's almost exactly the same.

Paul W. S. Anderson

people fiction ideas

Recently, I've been loving Monster Hunter! A film conversion is currently in planning.

Paul W. S. Anderson

hunters planning monsters

I think, as a filmmaker, my style of filmmaking is very well-suited to 3-D anyway, so it's not like I'm having to change a huge amount of the way I shoot to work in 3-D. I think you could probably dimensionalize some of my movies and they would make very good 3-D films.

Paul W. S. Anderson

style way thinking

I really believe in 3-D. I really think it is the wave of the future for cinema.

Paul W. S. Anderson

cinema believe thinking

One of the reasons why Resident Evil is a very successful video game franchise, much more so than a lot of others that have fallen by the wayside, is that they have constantly evolved.

Paul W. S. Anderson

successful evil games

Oh, yeah. A big part of my job is drinking martinis when I work in advertising.

Paul W. S. Anderson

advertising drinking jobs

When you're writing it's a very solitary job. It's you and your word processor and a cup of tea. It's nice- that again, is another nice thing about being able to do commercials is, you can get out of the house and chase high speed cars around for a few days and then by the time you go back, you're kind of re-infused to write.

Paul W. S. Anderson

nice writing jobs

My approach has always been to put 100% into the movie I'm making right now. I think sometimes filmmakers put too much thought into the grand franchise they're going to build. And guess what? If the first movie doesn't work there is no franchise, so I'm always concentrated on making the best, best possible movie right now.

Paul W. S. Anderson

what-if sometimes thinking

There was a lot of pressure on me as a filmmaker to raise the bar and do better than before so, you know, I put a lot of thought and energy, that's for sure.

Paul W. S. Anderson

filmmaker energy

Death Race was a very modern action movie and it used all of those modern action techniques with lots of hand-held camera, lots of punchy zooms, and lots of quick movements and quick cuts. In 3D, I didn't want to do that anymore.

Paul W. S. Anderson

cutting race hands

The cameras were a little twitchy, and you'd get less footage and less set-ups every day. The interesting thing about it was that you just composed images in a completely different way because we had big 3D monitors on set, and you'd wear the glasses and see the image in 3D.

Paul W. S. Anderson

glasses different interesting

If you work with any new technology, you have to expect that it's going to be a little problematic.

Paul W. S. Anderson

new-technology technology littles

I started doing commercials in 2008 right after we released Death Race, and the reason was that I spent two years prepping Death Race and building all these custom rigs to shoot cars in the most dynamic and exciting way.

Paul W. S. Anderson

race two years

Interestingly it's when you come to the comedy, that's where a lot of the discussion is. It's like ten people sitting around talking about what is funny. "Is that funny? Is that funnier than that? Is this slightly funnier than this?" I guess that's what it's like when you're making a comedy movie as well, you just have to sit around talking seriously about the nature of comedy.

Paul W. S. Anderson

sitting talking people

I went for a more classical approach to filmmaking with lots of dolly, track and cranes, and slightly slower, more choreographed fight moves, so you get more fight moves in one take.

Paul W. S. Anderson

track fighting moving

These commercials, I directed them all from inside the tracking vehicle, so I was traveling about 85mph most of the time, so there wasn't really anyone sitting beside me other than the driver. But, you know, yeah the agency is there and VW is there, which is- they're paying for it all and also because the agency created the boards, they want to make sure that you're not going off the rails in executing it. And also they can help, because they- it's a very different thing to cinema.

Paul W. S. Anderson

agency boards different

When that technology becomes widespread and it's on every car on the freeways, it's going to save so many lives. Especially in America, so many people get killed in these multi-car pileups on the freeways.

Paul W. S. Anderson

technology america people

The way it works in commercials is they come to you with the script and then you do the visual, you do the storyboards, and you give your vision of it, but it's very much their baby. You just kind of put your polish and sheen on it, and you're interpretation of it, but it's very much the agency's idea.

Paul W. S. Anderson

agency baby ideas

The first job I did was Volkswagen, we shot it in Long Beach, and it was like they won multiple awards with it and they were super excited about it and that kind of launched me into the world of commercials. Still most of what I do is car-related stuff.

Paul W. S. Anderson

awards jobs beach

I find it terribly distracting in movies when people do accents, I must say, unless it's terribly serious and the story is rooted in South Africa and you're doing a South African accent. But in period movies I think nothing can be more distracting than people doing accents.