I find most American films annoy me because their third act tends to be tying up loose ends and returning to moral values and killing the monster. I think most of the scripts I read to tend to go in that direction and I find that very, very unsatisfying. I want the stories to have loose ends and to pose some questions - or even say things that aren't too comfortable.
David MackenzieThe way I generally work is that I do try to leave as many decisions as I possibly can to the day of, because it feels like that's where you're most in tune to what's going on. I sort of feel like my job is to be a conduit to opportunities, to maximize the creativity of the day itself - because that's when the cameras are running. That's the important thing to me.
David MackenzieAs I get more confident as a filmmaker, I don't need to prepare so much in advance. I can trust that I and my team can come up with a solution.
David MackenzieI think that's my approach: If it feels right for a scene to be whole, to hold on without cutting for a long time, then that's great. But other scenes, they don't want it.
David MackenziePeople start realising that I'm a responsible filmmaker and I'm not going to run away with the budget or do anything stupid. I think it probably depends on the subject matter and it depends on who's producing and all those things. My hope is that I'll be allowed to carry on making films.
David MackenzieI'm really glad Westerns have had a revival. Hopefully our little resurgence will last a while.
David MackenzieI don't have any interest in doing superhero franchise movies. I don't connect to the fantastic and I'm not a comic person, it's just not my thing, so I'm not looking in that direction - but ambitious films on a big scale I'm very interested in looking at. I'm interested in reality, I'm interested in people, so it's just about finding a project I'm interested in.
David Mackenzie