the process of actually discovering what
the film is for me is the journey of
making the film the key process is
getting out there on the location and
shooting the film and it's during that
but I really discover what the film is
and that is a collaboration of a very
involved in organic kind which is not
just about the actors but about the
cinematographer the designers the sound
man the weight of the editor and
everybody else but in order to do that
each film is preceded by what these days
is usually arounds not about six months
of doing the kind of work that I would
elicit Lee referring to which
principally involves the actors that of
course it involves the other people too
because obviously we have to prepare the
film that we're going to shoot and we
all have to be when we get to day one of
the shooting which is the only time but
it really matters because frankly if
you're making a movie nothing matters
except what happens in front of the
camera when it turns over that the
period before that that the beginning of
that period and there is no structure at
all there is no five or three act
structure or anything else there is a
feeling a concept a notion possibilities
but the time we get to the point before
the shoot there is a structure a broad
structure which I I do put on very
briefly on paper in a very schematic way
but I think it what I have to say is
that all art in every medium is a
synthesis of improvisation and order all
artists no matter when you write or
paint or sculpt or make music or write
poems or whatever you do all artists
will have to a greater or lesser extent
and sense of what they're going to do
and perhaps not it may be down there I
love and up there
in other words completely intuitive not
not in any way cerebral or intellectual
or rational it may be a strong sense of
something that inevitably has to be done
or something that really has to be
fleshed out or discovered or dug up from
some depth just by the sheer act of
investigating Picasso paraphrasing
Picasso said words the effect that if
you know what you're going to do before
you do it what is the point of doing it
it is not extraordinary for artists to
either a not know what it's going to be
until you start to investigate and then
you interact with the material or be to
think they know what it's going to be
and it turns out to move in another
direction or see to have a clearer
notion which drives them into the theme
but then they're able to make
discoveries so all of that really is an
explanation to you the fact that I can
and do have in the case of some films in
the including naked and happy-go-lucky
as we've said have no more than a kind
of sense of feeling of the spiritual
thing but then I start to you know work
with this actor with Sally Hawkins in
the case of naked with David Thewlis and
with others and start to build
characters and start to this resonates
with ideas and possibilities and
juxtapositions of things I want to deal
with and things that I mean for example
happy-go-lucky is at one level quite
clearly a reflection on education there
are various teachers and good bad and
indifferent that's a very V poppy and
her comrades are very good teachers
there's a very good flamenco teacher who
however has doesn't know the first one
of the first rule
of teaching if you leave your personal
emotional baggage outside the classroom
and then there's this driving instructor
called Scott brilliantly played by the
Marsan who is full of all kinds of
quantification and stuff about teaching
but in fact understands nothing about
teaching it's always a lousy teacher and
but it didn't occur to me but to
investigate teaching until I came to it
through creating the characters and it
isn't that suddenly out of a blue light
or our education that's something I've
never thought of I'm going to make this
film about it it's something that I'm
obviously like everybody you know it's
an ongoing proc you patient I've been on
the end of the education system I teach
time two times substantially and of
course I I've raised a couple of now
adult kids and so I've been preoccupied
with education from that point of view
so you see kind of again as we artists
and people of various kinds of create
things do you kind of have ongoing
preoccupations when you have very
specific things that you set about