If people spend two hours thinking about the direction of their own lives and can relate to the stories they see on screen, to me that's a success.

Any documentary; any capturing of a non-fiction event, is a hyper-realistic condensation of reality that hopefully reveals an emotional truth. It's never the actual literal truth of an event.

I never believe I'm presenting objective reality; I also don't want to delude people into thinking that my subject is talking directly to them.

I like to blow up stereotypes, like taking the icons of metal, the epitome of male testosterone and showing them as regular people.

I'm an observer in life, not a participant. That's why I'm a documentarian who looks through a camera. I'm not a touchy-feely person; I'm not a seminar person.

What you hope, what you're trusting the filmmaker to do, is to capture the emotional truth of the situation.

The Metallica film was like this incredible life experience where I learned the most through guys that stereotypically you would think couldn't offer much to you. That's what I love about the film: It explodes your stereotype of them - they're not just a bunch of lugheads banging on the guitar.