While hugely advocating the democratisation of film making to be beyond the realm of rich, white men, Quentin Tarantino has told the 10,000 strong audience of Adobe Max in San Diego there was a “parenthetical downside” to the ease of making movies.
‘There is a parenthetical downside to the ease with which movies are made, but that parenthetical side is completely dwarfed by the upside . . . basically anyone can make a movie besides rich, white men.”
“Not every movie needs to be made. Not every movie should be made. There used to be hurdles. And I’m one of those guys who made a movie that didn’t need to be made. It needed to be made to teach me how to make a movie, but nobody needed to see that fucking thing . . .
I think it puts a new level of responsibility on the young film maker to achieve a level of craft. Because now craftlessness is almost being, if not encouraged, accepted. Movies lack a level of visual quality that I frankly just don’t understand. They look like they just got out of bed.
The iconic film maker who speaks in a style that shows you where his trademark dialog comes from spoke about travelling the world “selling” his movies and being comforted by the fact that two years ago, all it was was a thought in his head and him sitting down with a piece of paper and pen.
While reconfirming his intention to stop at 10 movies – “I’ll drop the mic on stage and say match that homies!” – he also gave the audience into his creative process. Consider the next paragraph with this in mind, Tarantino only intends to give us two more movies.
What gets him going on one story and not another is a little harder for him to decide. He says he’s like a fish and there’s a lot of hooks with bait around him and you don’t know which one is going to hook you. He says there’s not a lot of stories circulating at once, but there’s a few. And in choosing which story he will pursue, he says “I trust myself as a writer. I trust my process. It’s done very well by me and so I have complete and utter trust in it.
“What I mean by that, is I know when something’s got to stick in the incubator and the incubator is in here [indicating his head].”
He says he never takes something out of his head too soon or if he does he quickly realises and puts it back. What he does know he says, “is when it’s time to take it out”.
“When I start coming about some idea, I have a record room – I’ve got a big vinyl collection – I’ll go through those records and I’ll look for the beat of the movie . . . I’m trying to find the rhythm of the movie.
“When I find a song that I can pace around my room and imagine a really groovy credit sequence that goes a long way to encouraging his idea. And if he needs a pick me up, he goes back and listens to that music and he’s right back in there. I’m in love all over again.”
Tarantino is the last 20 minutes on this video. The whole presentation is well worth a look.
