INterview with photographer-turned-filmmaker Louie Psihoyos

From Wall St Journal

A three-day crash course was all it took for photographer-turned-filmmaker Louie Psihoyos to pick up his new art.

“I just hired a local producer and said ‘Teach me what all the buttons are for,’” said the 54-year-old American, who had spent 17 years shooting stills for National Geographic.

Yet his maiden film, “The Cove,” an exposé of annual mass dolphin killings at the Japanese village of Taiji, betrayed no such inexperience. Besides winning critical acclaim and an Academy Award for Best Documentary, it helped shrink Taiji’s dolphin hunting industry by “several million dollars a year,” Mr. Psihoyos said, and spawned global awareness of the issue.

“George Clooney told me that it’s a better movie than ‘Ocean’s Eleven’…because it’s real,” he said. “It’s become some kind of a cult success. Although when people say that, it usually means the film isn’t making any money, which is true.”

Katiedot wrote:Do you sometimes get the impression that George has seen everything? From dancing with the stars to dolphin documentaries, he seems to have an informed opinion on them all!

pattygirl wrote: it could be both, the reason for several TVs on at the same time.

cindigirl wrote: And I know he can spread them apart. LOL