L.A. is so isolated and unhip in a way; it gives you room to figure out who you are and explore more personal stuff.

My experience, with both my parents, is that grief has a lot of down, sad things, but I was also really emotionally raw, in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely, my relationships were hotter, and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules.

The littlest thing can have the strongest connection when you're grieving. Your Proustian, poetic nerve is turned up to ten.

I'm not a craftsman of graphics or art or film. I'm more of an idea generator and manufacturer.

Grief and memory go together. After someone dies, that's what you're left with. And the memories are so slippery yet so rich.

Being a good Hans Haacke student, part of his influence on me is that there's no difference between a gallery show and a film - or even an ad and a T-shirt-in terms of cultural legitimacy. They're just different contexts in which to have some sort of communication.

No one leaves the edit room thinking, 'Yeah, I nailed that one!' Everyone I know goes into their first premiere or their first screening thinking, 'I screwed up so bad. I'm sorry, I messed up.' It's just a real common feeling.