Voices on the Art Form

Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 What are some of the practical parameters you're normally engaged with in producing for TV? How do you get the high quality that you do on the budgets that you have to work with?

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with the previously answered question, which is, you know, my involvement with each one of the areas and sort of refining all of those departments so that it has a high-quality look to it, that everybody knows what we're doing. It's not about money, it's about the quality of the work, and it's about what money we do have, making sure it ends up on the screen and not in people's pockets. I don't mean that everybody shouldn't make a good living; I think that's certainly part of it. But I mean there's a lot of film that just ends up being an expense that is not needed. You gotta try to learn where that is and avoid it. You see projects sometimes with 12 producers on the project. Well, there's likely only one or two of them that are actually doing the work; everybody else is getting a piece of the action, because they had something to do with it somewhere along the line. That's not money that ends up on the screen. . . . I think that all the films we've done - I pride them in looking like small features. People always remark that they do. But yet, they're certainly done on a small television budget.

It seems most of your projects are done on location.

I try to film exactly where it takes place. I'm one of the few who does that. I like the authenticity of it - when I did Return of the Native I went to England and filmed in Thomas Hardy's backyard, where it actually took place. When we did True Women I went to the hill country in Texas, and The Staircase in Santa Fe. If at all possible, I like to go where it actually is.

What about your experience in New Mexico?

I think it was a very good one. I love the atmosphere, first of all. That was very important to me as an outsider coming in. There were services that were above competent, and it was a good place for people to be, from an outsider point of view, for a 12-week period of time. The light is very important to me when I'm making a movie, and the light there has interesting qualities to it that show up on film always. I love that. . . . Certainly, you look for a community where they have film experience because in doing down-and-dirty television movies you don't have a chance, unfortunately, to do a lot of teaching. . . .

. . . I would return to Santa Fe and do a movie as long as it was the right atmosphere for it. . . . It was a very good experience, and I can't say that for all the places we've been. It was definitely very good there.