We didn't set out to make some polemic about life in the digital age, I can only react emotionally to story ideas. You hear an idea and you go, 'That's cool. I can see spending a few years of my life working on that.' As a filmmaker, you approach it like, 'OK. They're going to give you all this money to make this movie. It's like an electric train set you get to play with.'

Jonathan Mostow

Categorized in : Giving Age Filmmaker

If I have a rare Saturday night when I can go out to see a movie, I look at the paper and I go, 'Hmm, what's the best medicine for my mind?' I'm going, 'What's the most escapist, fun entertainment I can go to?' So I think that's number one, first and foremost, because that's why I think people go to movies. It's a bonus that there's something real.

Jonathan Mostow

real fun night

The nature of a movie story is you have to keep charging forward and keep the audience with the story.

Jonathan Mostow

audience

It's a very different thing when you're able to read something and see it in your mind, then to imagine it on screen. It's emotional transference that you don't have in literature that you have in movies. People invest in the person they see on the screen and they can't shift gears.

Jonathan Mostow

emotional mind people

The thing about the human face is that we're so genetically programmed to recognize differences in human faces that, when you're digitally affecting faces, you have to be the most careful because even the smallest adjustment and it feels like it just isn't him anymore.

Jonathan Mostow

careful

I'm a huge gadget freak. I look on CNet literally every day to see what new gizmos are out there. I love technology. I'm constantly e-mailing. I've got the iPhone.

Jonathan Mostow

day look technology love

A lot of filmmakers hate testing movies. I love it because it's an audience medium. The biggest problem has been the prevalence of all these Internet sites. It's almost impossible to have a test screening without it leaking out on the Internet.

Jonathan Mostow

internet hate impossible love

When I made 'Terminator 3,' I learned something about directing actors to behave like robots. And one of the key things I learned is that if an actor tries to play a robot, he or she risks playing it mechanically in a way that makes the performance uninteresting.

Jonathan Mostow

risks performance robots way

It seems that we're heading toward the day that films will be released in all platforms simultaneously, albeit with a cost premium to see it at home. But I hope that theater-going doesn't end - I think that watching movies on the big screen with an audience is still the best format and also an important one for society.

Jonathan Mostow

best day hope home

The place I begin is with story. If the audience doesn't care about that, then it doesn't matter how amazing the spectacle is. My central philosophy is that people go to the movies to be told a story, not to see stuff blow up.

Jonathan Mostow

amazing place care people

One thing I try to avoid in my films are effects that have a CG 'look' to them. The challenge is never let the audience get distracted by thinking that they're watching something made in a computer.

Jonathan Mostow

challenge never look thinking

The reason I don't make more movies is because it's really hard to find ideas that I go, 'Yeah, I could spend two years of my life doing this.' Mostly what I do is say no to movies because I go, 'Maybe I would see that, but I don't think I could spend two years on it. I'd go nuts.'

Jonathan Mostow

my-life think life ideas

Most of the things I've had a producorial involvement on began as things I was going to direct, or I set out to direct myself and realized either I don't have the fire in my belly to do it, or I don't feel like I've licked the story enough.

Jonathan Mostow

story feel myself fire

It takes such a commitment of passion and energy and time, and it's all so encompassing to direct that you've got to see the bullseye, and you know you can hit it - or at least get awfully close.

Jonathan Mostow

you passion energy time

Making a movie is difficult enough to sort of have a premeditated length that you're going for. I don't know a single filmmaker on the planet who does that.

Jonathan Mostow

know you single enough

You don't come to work going, 'Oh my God, I've got all this money I have to worry about'. You come to work going, 'I need more time and more money'. Because whatever resources you're given, you're always trying to push the envelope.

Jonathan Mostow

money god work time