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 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.

There are some audiences who are uncomfortable with the ambiguity, though. They want a film to chew their food for them, they want Hollywood endings that tie everything together in the end and answer all of the questions. They are usually people on one extreme of the political spectrum or other and they haven't been happy because the film is not polemical enough on their side. They aren't usually people who aren't interested in understanding points of view that they disagree with - they just want to attack their opponents - and I'm ok with them not liking the film.

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

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 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.