Marshall Curry
Marshall Curry
Marshall Curry is a two-time Academy Award-nominated American documentary director, producer, cinematographer and editor. His films include Street Fight, Racing Dreams, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front and Point and Shoot...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
CountryUnited States of America
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After college, I did a bunch of different jobs - taught English in Mexico, worked in public radio, worked for a web design company - but there was something about documentaries that really attracted me.
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As far as the balance between being a journalist, being an artist, being a storyteller - documentary filmmakers are all three of those things. The balance between them is affected by the film itself, the topic of the film.
films
When I'm making documentaries, I think a lot about how fiction films play. I want them to have the pacing, the twists and the character development of fiction films.
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I'm not a purist - I like films that are narrated and films that aren't, films that are beautiful and films that are clumsy but heartfelt. Mostly, I just like a good story and good characters.
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I'm looking for a charismatic character - somebody who you just want to look at and listen to and whom the camera likes. I'm also looking for a narrative arc: Something is going to happen, and there will be a question that will make you wonder what happens at the end.
article character pacing sort straight supporting switch thesis
If I were writing an article for the newspaper, it would be thesis statement, information, information, supporting arguments. That would be the setup. When I'm making a documentary, the pacing of the film and the way that you sort of switch from character to character - all of those are more about storytelling than straight journalism.
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In 2008, A.J. Schnack recruited Thom Powers to start the Cinema Eye Honors to recognize the artistry and craft that go into making documentary films.
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In fiction film, there are so many trappings - money, glory, champagne and supermodels - that attract the wolves. But in documentary film, there's none of that, so the wolves stay away. The only people who make docs are people who are curious about other people and just like making documentaries.
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I feel like a lot of funders of documentaries today want to fund films that have a social message that is going to yield results.
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I feel like people with their camera phones and Twitter and Facebook, this kind of question like, 'How can I be present and also document my presence or document what I'm doing?' is something that's always on my mind, even when I'm not working as a filmmaker.
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The first time you watch a movie that you like, all of the magic works on you. It's an experience of having a world unfold in front of you. But if you watch it again, you start to see where the seams are.
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I think that in our society we use the word 'terrorism' a lot - individuals throw the word around a lot without carefully considering it.
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I'm not one of those people who sees documentaries as a stepping stone to doing fiction. I love documentaries and watch tons of documentaries. But, I like fiction films a lot, too.
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To me, the most interesting films are films that take very strong points of view and bang them up against each other and let sparks happen.