On stage, the audience watches from a fixed viewpoint and the director cannot retake something he doesn't like. It has to work straight through.

When the music and the characters are flawlessly synchronized, the opera develops an emotional force that movies and plays cannot match.

It's not enough to hit the notes. There is no point in the singers just standing there and sounding wonderful if they're not connecting with the characters they are portraying.

Perhaps the most difficult thing is shooting scenes set 6,000 feet up in the mountains of Mexico.

In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.

With Cold Sassy Tree having its first production, I saw no necessity to do anything other than produce it with the correct setting.

For a director, the most challenging scenes are the dialogue scenes.