And that first screening was overwhelming. You were there. People applauded when the title card comes in; there's a big "gasp moment" partway through the film. It couldn't have gone better, and it was very surreal.

By the time you arrive at Sundance as a filmmaker, you've been living with your film intimiately, and scrutinized every frame, and probably aren't happy with - or at least I'm never happy with it - and you've seen it in the roughest of states, and you lose perspective, really.

Whether a project is large or small, it doesn't matter much to me as long as I feel I can serve the story as best as possible.

We live in a time when there are tech companies that have an unprecedented accumulation of power, wealth, and information with basically no competition. It's not in their nature to self-regulate, to break themselves up, or ask for less information. It's only in their nature to grow and gain more information from us, because the more that they know about us, honestly the better they can market to us and sell to us and make us better consumers.

In many ways, I think I'm a good person for it. I mean, I'm not a musical theater dude. Or rather, I don't watch everything, and love everything, and have every album. The ones that I love - like I've seen The Wizard of Oz a hundred times. West Side Story I love. I love Singing in the Rain, I love White Christmas. I love the Dennis Potter ones like Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven. I love Sondheim.

And that first screening was overwhelming. You were there. People applauded when the title card comes in; there's a big "gasp moment" partway through the film. It couldn't have gone better, and it was very surreal.

I cannot control what you bring into the theater when you see the film. I can't control what my parents bring in. I can't control what some random person on Twitter brings in to the theater. All I can control is the hour and 50 minutes that the movie lasts, and try to give it absolutely everything I can.