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.
Joseph M. KahnI have a day job that's very odd. Most people, by the time they're 25, glom onto one kind of music and that's what they listen to for the rest of their lives.
Joseph M. KahnYou know that that thing is going to be as crisp and as clean, as many times as you want to watch it. So, I knew that the film was going to be watched multiple times, a lot like with music videos. Music videos aren't designed to be watched once. They're designed to be watched hundreds of times. On a certain level, the film was dream logic-ed, like a music video
Joseph M. KahnI'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.
Joseph M. KahnI 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."
Joseph M. KahnJohn 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.
Joseph M. Kahn