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Only One Time In My Career I Had That Feeling [that This Is Not Gonna Get Made], It Was For This Movie [life Of Pi]. It Was Right Before We Started The Physical Pre-production. I Pre-visualized The Whole Ocean Part Before We Made The Movie, I Was That Prepared. At One Point They Seemed To Want To Drop It Because It Was Really Risky. The Budget We Proposed Was A Lot Higher Than They Expected, They Wanted To [drop It]. After All, It's A Philosophical Book And A Literature Property, It's Not Batman.

-Ang Lee

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Only One Time In

Ang Lee

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Only One Time In My Career I Had That Feeling [that This Is Not Gonna Get Made], It Was For This Movie [life Of Pi]. It Was Right Before We Started The Physical Pre-production. I Pre-visualized The Whole Ocean Part Before We Made The Movie, I Was That Prepared. At One Point They Seemed To Want To Drop It Because It Was Really Risky. The Budget We Proposed Was A Lot Higher Than They Expected, They Wanted To [drop It]. After All, It's A Philosophical Book And A Literature Property, It's Not Batman.

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The Fear Factor Actually Brings The Genuineness.

Over The Years Woodstock Got Glorified And Romanticised And Became The Event That Symbolised Utopia. It's The Last Page Of Our Collective Memory Of The Age Of Innocence. Then Things Turned Ugly And Would Never Be The Same Again.

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Beautifully-acted And Precisely Observed, Ilo Ilo Is An Amazing Debut, Full Of Heart And Intelligence.

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Basically The Movies I Make Are My Life, So I Choose How I Want To Live My Life For The Next Two Years. So That's A Decision I Have To Make. At Some Point If I Feel There Are Enough Elements - It Doesn't Even Have To Have Great Characters Or Great Stories - It's Just Elements That Can Get My Excitement And Curiosity For One Or Two Years, Then I'll Jump In And I'll Find Out What That Is. Then I Have To Do [interviews Like This] And Rationalize Why I Do This.

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I See A Movie As A Way Of Learning About The World, About Myself, And Learning About My Relationship With People And Art.

I Like To Do Drama, Something About Life That Could Be Disappointing.

I Look At American Movies, The Big Muscles, And Try To Apply That To Chinese Film-making.

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The Way I Go About A Lovemaking Scene Is That We Will Talk About It During The Rehearsing Time.

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Making Movies Is A Way Of Understanding Myself And The World.

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Sometimes, You Have To Get Angry To Get Things Done.

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I Don't Like To Deal With Studios. I Don't Like To Have Conversations With Executives. I Pitch To The Studio, Then Never Talk To Them Until The Test Screening.

I Feel Like All Of My Characters Now Take This Congested Situation, They Clash, And From There You Purge Yourself.

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3d Is Quite A Lot More Advanced In Animated Movies; For Live-action Movies We're Just Taking Baby Steps, We're Just In The Beginning.

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We Need Storytelling. Otherwise Life Just Goes On And On, Like The Number Pi.

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You Have To Know The Rules, Otherwise You Have No Tools To Communicate To The Audience, But To Keep It Fresh You Have To Break Some. I Don't Choose Genres As The Element, But The Material Itself Is The Element, Then I'll Decide What Genre I Need. That's Just How I Work.

Directing, I Get All Kinds Of Inspiration. It's Working With People. It's A Lot More Fun.

I Like To Think I'm Un-categorisable.

I Think For Most People, The Audience Probably Couldn't Tell The Difference, But I Know They [shots Of Visual Effects] Can Be Better. And The People Working Know They Can Be More Precise. I'm Still Doing Another Round Of Sound Mixing And Color Timing, Pretty Technical Stuff. I Think The Movie [life Of Pi] Is Really Presentable, Nothing Was Left Out That Would Take You Out Of The Movie. I Just Need To Perfect The Job And I Still Have Two Weeks To Go [to Deliver Final Cut To Fox].

When I Sent Those Scripts, That Was The Lowest Point Of My Life. We'd Just Had Our Second Son, And When I Went To Collect Them From Hospital, I Went To The Bank To Try And Get Some Money To Buy Some Diapers, The Screen Showed I've Got $26 Left.

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When There Is A Strong Woman Character In A Story - That Always Grabs Me

Many Times When You Make A Movie, It Feels Like Your Biggest Mistake. But Even If A Film Isn't A Hit, You Shouldn't View It As A Mistake.

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