I don't turn Britney Spears into a star. I have to spot that these people are going to be stars, in the future, and say, "Okay, these guys have cultural validity and they're going to pop."

I'm imagining there's a particular audience out there that's younger and older, too. It works on two levels. Do they exist? I don't know. I had to make it to find out if it does. When you do something this experimental, that's part of the process and part of the risk. I only spent my own money, so that I'm the only person that gets hurt, if it fails.

I don't think the film is going to work for everybody, period. It wasn't meant to be done for everybody. I didn't four quadrant this movie, like Hollywood did. I knew it was a very specific audience that was there. We're also taking a shot in the dark.

On a certain level, the film retains a cultural memory. It may be meaningless to some kids, but it doesn't matter. A lot of the '90s references will be meaningless, but do some of these kids really understand what they're wearing when they wear a Led Zeppelin shirt? No. But, it looks cool and it seems to have some sort of cultural cache.

John Hughes made a certain type of high school movie, and then it stayed static for 30 years. The only thing that changed was that maybe it was found footage or maybe it's a little snarkier, but the actual language that kids live in today, like with texting, motion graphics, the internet and that whole hashtag culture doesn't exist in movies today. It's left on the floor.

I will say that I'm going to take full credit for this. I knew Josh [Hutcherson] was going to be a star. One of the things you do, as a music video director, is spot talent. Th at's one of my things. I don't just do random people.

The filmmaker should make it, and then the critic should interpret it, period. If the director goes in there and starts telling you exactly what to think, you have just completely slapped the audience in the face and not given them the opportunity to interest it, and that's terrible.