I don't think Steve [Jobs] started Apple as a scam. But he understood early on the power of marketing. The idea of the computer as a bicycle for the human mind - I think that was something he believed.

Many people, including myself, thought of Jobs as an inventor, an Edison-like figure, but he wasn't. I did a documentary on James Brown recently; and, oddly, I found a lot in common between Jobs and Brown. Jobs was also a fantastic performer, put on an extraordinary live show at his product launches, but he could also be ruthless, cruel and totally self-aggrandizing. And just as Brown surrounded himself with the very best musicians, Jobs understood the importance of hiring the absolutely most talented people and knew how crucial they were to the success of what he was trying to do.

Jobs' incredible skill was as a storyteller, a salesman. He could captivate our imaginations and reel us in. He was more P.T. Barnum than Thomas Edison.

Steve Jobs was one of the first people to understand that the computer wasn't just a tool, but that it could be an extension of ourselves, and he positioned Apple that way. The iPod was this revolutionary device with the idea of 1,000 songs in your pocket, and then that machine represents who you are.

I come from a filmmaking tradition and a storytelling background. So somehow I've emerged like a mutant who can straddle both worlds.

I think one of things that Steve Jobs, in his own funny way, encouraged us to remember with those "Think different" posters of Gandhi and Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King was, "How do you make the world a better place?"

If people are portrayed as monsters, we become disconnected from them, and to me that is not remotely interesting.