M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan
Manoj Shyamalan, known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-American film director, screenwriter, producer and occasional actor known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots. His major films include the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, the superhero drama thriller Unbreakable, the science fiction thriller Signs, the psychological thriller The Village, the fantasy thriller Lady in the Water, the natural thriller The Happening, the fantasy adventure film The Last Airbender, the sci-fi action-adventure film After Earth, the found-footage horror film...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth6 August 1970
CityMahe, India
CountryUnited States of America
I think one of my favorite things about making low budget movies is that when you get into expensive moviemaking territory, it's almost impossible not to reverse engineer the movies. It's irresponsible not to think about the result and the financial result. But when you make low budget movies, you can put that out of your head.
My directing style is long takes. The longer take I can do, the more I can think of not doing it in cuts, the better.
One of the reasons I really love low budget filmmaking is you don't have to think about that as much. You can have more fun and be more playful and be freer creatively.
Basically, when I'm writing something, I think about what is the subject of the piece. The subject of the piece is our fear of getting old, which is a variation on our fear of dying.
Saw # Birdman . Such singular, audacious filmmaking. Can't stop thinking about the ending.
I think I take what you might call a B-movie story, deal with B-movie subjects, and I treat it as if it's an A-movie in terms of my approach, my crew, my actors, my ethics and so on. I guess that's my trademark or one of them anyway!
I've never had an issue with studios. I believe in them as true creative partners in the process.
I grew up watching Steven Spielberg and scary movies.
Movie making is not like other art forms, like painting, or writing a novel, because that can be digested or interpreted... It takes two years to make each one of these, and it's always judged on money.
I feel most akin as an artist, in my life and my career, to Agatha Christie.
That's something we should be taught as kids: To be okay with ourselves.
The thing that's protected me creatively is that the movies have made profits.
I don't like to chase an audience. You can smell when someone is chasing an audience and it's not good.
There's a monster outside my room, can I have a glass of water?