I think some people are under the impression that you can simply just shoot it on blue, and then it's all done in post. But no, you really need to understand the pipeline, from beginning to end.

Go out and make something that reflects your interests, your taste, and your ideas. No one will pay you to make something until you have a few things you can show that you've directed. I got my start by making short films on my own.

That's the tricky thing these days: being able to surprise people.

You won't believe how many people have congratulated me around the world for shooting a movie in 2D. It's bizarre. It's the strangest thing.

I think some people are under the impression that you can simply just shoot it on blue, and then it's all done in post. But no, you really need to understand the pipeline, from beginning to end.

Of course there are always exceptions, but opinions are not to be feared.

When I was in architecture school, rather than giving us drafting boards and t-squares and lead pencils and stuff they gave us all the same tools that places like Digital Domain and ILM used to make features films or special effects. They gave us all these digital tools like Alias and Mya and Soft Image and all these kind of high-end computers, so I came out of architecture school knowing how to use all that stuff. And I started making short films at night.