There's 2 parts to it.

The first part requires a lot of preparation. I really, really like to prepare and think about every element of the film - what I want the scene to be about, how i want the scene to feel, how I want to shoot, how I want to compose, I think a lot about my shot list. I try to create as much of a game plan as possible, and I think that preparation is critical, because there's so much chaos in trying to make a movie -when you think about it, you're re-creating life, and life is chaotic. So there's a certain amount of control that you need to make sure that what you want to do in telling your story comes across onscreen. So that's one part.

The other part is life IS chaotic, so you want to be able to embrace some of that as well. So there's a certain amount of preparation that should be thrown out the door when you get onset with your actors, so they can work from a place of instinct, and so that YOU can work from a place of instinct as well. So it's kinda like when you learn and memorize, or when you know all the lines, all the music, you're free to improvise.

So it's those 2 parts for me. Really being so prepared that I have the freedom to work instinctually. And that's been a long process for me, because in some of my earlier films, it would reach a point where it was too locked in, they didn't embrace enough chaos. And starting with THE GIRL IS IN TROUBLE, and that cell phone film I made, because I was so limited in time, i've tried to embrace a sense of chaos and instinctivenesss - where you do your homework so well, you have the freedom to color outside of the lines, and find a nice middle ground between what you want to say, and how you can go about saying it in an interesting way.