Everyone has access to a pen and paper, but to be a great writer is difficult.

I truly value the cinema experience, the tribal gathering in the dark to watch something larger than life. I like to sit in the first row with no heads in front of mine, and become one with the screen. I always stay for the complete credits so I can linger in the film's story just a little longer.

My advice to emerging documentary filmmakers would be: try to find other people, a group, a cooperative that you can work with. Filmmaking is hard and lonely and decidedly unglamorous. Find like-minded souls and share the joy and the misery.

Witnessing is the essence of being a documentary filmmaker. Capturing moments in time; never knowing how history will judge them.

Like a human rights lawyer who uses the law to rectify wrongs, I use filmic storytelling for the same effect.

The digital revolution has had a democratizing effect. Now anyone can be a filmmaker, but to be a good filmmaker is as hard as it ever was.

Celebrate your victories and mark your defeats. Ultimately documentary filmmaking is not a job, it's a calling.