Extreme sports tricks are becoming increasingly complex, the courses ever more challenging and crashes all too common.

I don't believe in objectivity. I observe the observer's paradox every moment I'm filming. Your presence is changing everything; there's no mistaking it. And you have a responsibility.

I love great locations in movies, and I couldn't believe I'd never seen a landfill on screen before. It was the most haunting place.

I have always been interested in garbage: What it says about us. What in there embarrasses us, and what we can't bear to part with. Where it goes and how much of it there is. How it endures. What it might be like to work with it every day.

There's a theory of accidents that I studied when I was making a film about nuclear weapons: you can never eliminate accidents, because the measures you introduce to prevent accidents actually produce more accidents. That's certainly true of this sport; you're flying over 40 feet of what might look like snow, but it's hard as ice, it's as hard as pavement. You're doing acrobatic spins and tricks, 40 feet above pavement, essentially. There's been more accidents since, and there are going to continue to be more accidents, that's the nature of the sport.

The world of extreme sports is also one of the big businesses. Kids might think that snowboarding is the ultimate freedom, but this freedom is being marketed to them by commercial sponsors.

I find titles the hardest thing. I was worried that 'Waste Land' was too much of a downer. For me, 'The Crash Reel' confronts what the film is about: it's not just about the reality of a crash, it's about the extremity we all face, and what happens when life crashes on you.