A big part of the humor is in identifying with the tragic elements of the film. The New Zealand sense of humor is very dark. Our films are usually very dark and it's always someone being killed. Usually a child.
There are lots of parts of filmmaking that I don't like. At the end of the day, especially on features, the film turns into a commodity. You have to play this entirely new game I'm very uncomfortable with.
I distinctly remember watching Annie when I was very little and thinking 'I don't like this kid.' In fact I think I remember thinking 'I don't like any of these kids.' That's all I remember.
Sundance felt like a natural fit. I love coming here, and I do think that this festival suits my films rather than most of the festivals I've been to. I'm not going to Cannes, you know.
I might revisit - I like the idea of doing something else with [Hunt for the Wilderpeople characters]. But also I get bored of doing the same thing again. I just get bored.
I never wanted to be a filmmaker. I still, sometimes, think I got sidetracked by this, like this is a tangent. My main thing was painting; I was just going to do that.
I really love him [Jack Gleeson as Joffrey in Game of Thrones] - I love watching that character. It's quite phenomenal how people love to hate that character.
I have to keep reminding myself that I was hired for a reason and one of those reasons is because of the stories I tell and the films I've made previously.
I constantly remind myself that there are terrible movies out there. I try to watch them, some of them, to give myself an understanding of what not to do.
In a couple of years I think it [sequel to What We Do] will come out as a script and we'll shoot that. Or maybe it will just come out as some t-shirts.
I've always been a relaxed person on set, but I think the main thing is I think about it from an editing point of view way more than I did before.
I think I did not like him [Corey Feldman] in Goonies. He's kind of a similar character in Stand By Me isn't he? Well I liked him in Stand By Me.
Short film: you can be poetic and you don't have to answer anything. You can make whatever you want. You have creative freedom with short film.
I don't have any room in my heart for that character [Kevin McCallister ]. I like the actor [Macaulay Culkin], but the character, no.
I've loved comics since I was a kid, collected them, I've always dreamed of being involved in comics.
I want to do weird things and big budget things and no budget things. I don't have a five-year plan.
I love heroes that really go through ordeals and then come out the other end completely changed.
I hate the modern day the kids live in. I don't think it's very cool. Everyone's interconnected.
I'm used to working with restrictions and that's when you come up with the more creative stuff.
A feature film is an expansion of budget, stress, story, hours, time, workload, everything.
I like to find comedy or something interesting to look at with whatever I'm working on.
The films I like to watch are when they make it relatable to human audiences.
To make filmmaking interesting to me, I want to keep learning things.
There were definitely Nazis who saw the error of their ways.
Music - it's motivational and just makes you relax.
Hitler rounded up all of the vampires in Europe.
Sometimes there are really happy mistakes.
I loved him [Ke Huy Quan as Short-Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom] - everyone loved him when I saw the film. Now I'm a grown-up and I watch it I'm not so sure - he's so loud. He yells for the entire film.
I'm really not trying to do everything that comes to mind because that's when it can be dangerous. For instance, I believe as much as possible, how your camera moves and flies around should be limited to the physics of how you could do it in real life.
With a feature film you're dealing with so much more money and you've got to be very aware of the fact that you're really working with an audience. You've got to have a relationship with the audience. Play with them and show them things you want them to see.
If you're tracking with a character that's running off a thing and diving off, I would leave the camera there and not follow them down, because cameras don't do that. The audience understands that. I'll definitely bring that understanding of keeping things a bit more grounded.
Everything changes once you start trying to market the film. Part of you feels like everything is slipping away from you. For me, I don't want people going to the theater thinking it's going to be a laugh-a-minute comedy, like a Will Ferrell film or something. Because it's not.
When you're actually making a film, it's just people on your back all the time wanting stuff and you're constantly having to it deal with them. It's probably the most time consuming of all the arts, but I do love it because it is a great mix of visual art and music and writing.
The Jemaine [Clement] and Taika works is a very long and slow machine - we put an idea in one end, and it takes about six years to come out the other end. And sometimes it doesn't even come out. And sometimes it comes out as a different idea. So we've out the idea of We're Wolves into the machine, and it's now slowly going through the sausage maker.
I remember being in Dublin in a café and seeing him [Jack Gleeson] two or three years ago, and he came in - Joffrey[from the Game of Thrones] came in - and I remember being so star-struck. I don't like famous people and I don't really get star-struck. But I remember seeing him and being so impressed that he was walking around. So I really like Joffrey.
My job is to make a film that can sit as a standalone piece, that if it's the only Marvel film you see, it's a great film with a great story in and of itself. The lucky thing is that there's a bunch of geniuses who run Marvel that make sure, even if it's a standalone piece, that it's part of a great big jigsaw puzzle that could be appreciated as a whole as well.
