I couldn't roam wildly and speak secretly with villagers [in North Korea]. No way you could do that. And honestly, I didn't even try. I was realistic of what I could do and yet persuaded them into accepting numerous things that I shouldn't have filmed.

When the camera is looking back at our planet Earth, it's the tiniest of specks somewhere out there in the universe. So we do have a new sense of proportion. Of course the volcanoes and the magma under us just remind us of that.

Here, all of a sudden, we have a revolution in - in communication, and it is - it is really, truly big. Internet is as big as the introduction of fire to the human race, or the introduction of electricity into our lives.

I think it is a quest of literature throughout the ages to describe the human condition.

Technology has a great advantage in that we are capable of creating dinosaurs and show them on the screen even though they are extinct 65 million years. All of a sudden, we have a fantastic tool that is as good as dreams are.

Hold firm to your vision but don't be a tyrant on set.

The volcano itself wasn't that interesting, but the man who refused to be evacuated - the only one of 75,000 people - was what set the tone for the film ["Encounters at the End of the World"] that we made together [with Clive Oppenheimer] ten years later.