I loved watching documentaries and had wanted to try making one for years - I'd just put it off as other opportunities arose. But I felt like time was running out for me if I wanted to do it.

I have a point of view on the issues, but it's a complex point of view that really can't be summed up in a sentence or two. I'm not being intentionally vague or mushy, it's just that - in my mind - the real answer is complicated.

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 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.

It was our goal to dig into the characters and really try to find out why they think the things they think and why they do the things they do - and we got some amazingly candid and revealing interviews - but it's not my job to offer summary judgment on those interpretations.

Balancing the complex point of view in the edit room was mostly a matter of challenging ourselves to keep digging deeper.