For a filmmaker, it's a rare chance to do a personal film on a big canvas.

So I'm a one movie at a time person, I don't develop. Normally we do a movie then one thing leads to another. If something pops up that catches my attention, then I'll decide.

Economically, it’s more expensive to make movies. I hope digital movies change that.

I guess in Hollywood you chart your life by Oscars. You say to each other, "Remember when that movie won that year? It was 2006. Remember that?"

My hometown was one of the major U.S. Air Force bases.

I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.

So anything that's not absolutely needed, we would cut it [footage] out, which would make me very insecure; everything has to work, and it's a water movie in 3D with a kid, animals. So the more I do that, the more I'm scared of "What if it doesn't go the way we want it?" But we had to do that to meet the budget, otherwise we wouldn't even have a start-date.