But you certainly don't have perspective. And there's so much pressure going into that opening night because you know there's journalists, tons of acquisitions people, and the fate of your film in some ways, if not decided, is really affected by how it screens that night.
James PonsoldtMaking movies is really hard, and it can be humbling. And once you put them out into the world, you can't control how people will respond to it.
James PonsoldtA lot of things, whether it's Brexit, the U.S. election, things that are happening on Facebook Live, the way that Twitter in many cases was weaponized, obviously for good but then obviously for bad, for proxy. Governments who use it to troll and give voice to conspiracy theories, white supremacists, et cetera. I think that's not going away.
James PonsoldtI think the irony of modern life is that our data, our highly personal information, has been taken from us, but in many cases it was given away freely by us. We willfully, consciously or unconsciously, acquiesced and gave it away for a new app, you know? For the products that we have. We didn't read the fine print, or don't even really care and didn't really check to see if we could opt out. No one had to steal it from us.
James PonsoldtI sometimes have to think about that because if I think about these five things and think of them all, I'll drop the balls, so I really have to prioritize and use every free second I have and maximize it. I wake up early, try to get sleep, but try to write for at least three hours every day. A really nice day for me is writing ten hours. I love that. Hasn't been a lot of that recently, but every free second I have I'm doing that.
James PonsoldtWe 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.
James Ponsoldt