You shot your last film on an iPhone. What were the biggest challenges in switching to film, with a bigger budget and crew?

In the past, when there were five or six of us, we could quickly adapt, like, “Oh, look! We’re inspired by this moment to get the cranes!” But when you have 40 people and a big camera, that move is harder, and it’s slower. I learned that I had to be much more communicative to people who don’t know my style.

Everybody always says, “Ooh, 35 millimeter really slows you down,” and of course there’s a little bit of waiting sometimes. These cameras are getting older because they’re not making new 35 millimeter cameras. But I think they will. I think film has an image that you can’t duplicate on digital no matter what, and I know that 70, 80 percent of the movie-going audience may not pick up on that, but I think it’s actually subconscious to that 80 percent. When was the last time that you walked out of a film that was shot on film and said, “I wish that was shot digitally”? That’s never the case!

Shooting Tangerine on the iPhone had a real impact, which was very nice. I’m not patting myself on the back, but I’m saying that to this day, I still get messages on Twitter and Facebook from filmmakers all around the world, saying, “This inspired me.” That’s really awesome, because I was inspired in the past by other film movements, so if it’s helped people or it’s democratizing filmmaking–like anybody can just pick their phone up and make a movie, and if they do it right, they’ll get into Sundance–then I want to support that. All mediums are great, it’s just that I had the chance to shoot film and help keep it alive.

Tangerine becomes a chase movie and sometimes Florida Project feels like adventure. Did you find the shifts between genres and style in editing or were those intentional from the beginning?

You write your film three times. You write it first, then you write it again in production while you’re working with your actors and figuring out what works, and then you write it a third time in editing. Going into Tangerine, I didn’t think there was going to be music. And now, you can see it’s wall-to-wall music. I wasn’t 100 percent sure until I got into post-production and I was like, there’s an energy in this footage that requires a beat; it requires a frenetic feel.

With The Florida Project, I knew there was going to be no music. I wanted to feel like the audience was spending summer with these kids, as if they were one of the gang of friends. If you think about it, a summer never has a plot. A summer never has a three-act structure. But I still wanted to keep people engaged and not bored, so post-production set the pace. But I always wanted it to be slow and that’s why I actually talked to Samantha Quan about these performances. I didn’t want to manipulate any performance in editing. Because you can do that. If you get enough coverage, sometimes you just tell a kid to stare at a wall and you can cut, cut, cut, and it looks like they’re the best actors in the world, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to really hold on these kids to show they were performing.

There’s a lot of discussion about who’s allowed to tell what stories. What advice would you give to someone who wants to tell a story that’s not their own, and is from the point-of-view of someone who’s at more of a disadvantage?

If we stopped doing that, some of the great works of literature would have never been written. Some of the great films never would have been made. But, there’s also the responsibility of the artist to make sure representation is done as respectfully and responsibly as possible, and that requires interaction. Now, for me, it’s actually collaboration, and going through an approval process, and [having them] sign off on certain things, and making sure that this is a responsible look at a group that I’m not part of. Take the time. Do what is right, ethically. Hollywood has basically been telling all the stories. They are the elite and they have money. I’m not going to be the voice of that group [of people in Florida], because it’s not my voice. But I am going to amplify it.

And then, on top of that, telling universal stories. You focus on something that has a universal appeal so that anybody, no matter where you are on the earth, can connect with that person and have empathy for that person. And there’s a fine line. One thing that I see new Hollywood doing especially, because I think they’re trying to compensate for what has gone wrong in the past with representation, is that they go too far in the other direction. They sanctify their characters and they make them saints. I could have made Halley the most holy mother who’s just put through the system and has no flaws and makes no mistakes. But that’s not real. We want to connect with people on a human level, so the flaws have to be there, or you’re basically being untruthful and even more condescending. It shows that you have no connection to the people that you’re focusing on. My hope is that, through the democratizing of storytelling in this medium, through awareness and respect, more diversity is happening in front of and behind the camera. It’s very important. If I ever have the means–and I hope I do; I don’t at this moment–I hope to produce films, and if I produce films, I want to look at groups that don’t get the opportunity to do it as much. It’s about diversity on both sides of the camera. ♦