I took a leave of absence from the internet company where I was working and bought a camera and a copy of Final Cut Pro editing software and made my first feature film, "Street Fight." It followed a crazy, racially charged mayoral election in Newark, NJ in which a young guy named Cory Booker was taking on the political machine of that city. It went on to be nominated for an Oscar and Emmy and was a real example of DIY film-making.

I took a leave of absence from the internet company where I was working and bought a camera and a copy of Final Cut Pro editing software and made my first feature film, "Street Fight." It followed a crazy, racially charged mayoral election in Newark, NJ in which a young guy named Cory Booker was taking on the political machine of that city. It went on to be nominated for an Oscar and Emmy and was a real example of DIY film-making.

I don't think that any law enforcement got in trouble for the event in Eugene where police sprayed the tree-sitters who were protesting the cutting of the trees for the parking garage.

Most of this film, however, is about interpretation - are these people terrorists or freedom fighters? Are they good or bad? Is cutting timber good or bad? And I don't feel like the answers to those questions are simple, so we don't try to answer them for the audience. I wanted to elicit the strongest - and most heartfelt - arguments from the characters in the film and let those arguments bang up against the strongest arguments of their opponents.

I think if the extremists were happy with my films, I'd start to worry.

I think this is one of those issues where the deeper you dig, the murkier it gets - and everyone who has spent a lot of time thinking about these issues.

I have wondered if I might be placed on a watch list of some sort by the government, though. I know that the documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, who is a friend and who has made documentaries about controversial Middle Eastern terrorists has had trouble at customs when she travels internationally - but nothing like that has happened to me.