Sean Baker

Some have said I focus on marginalized communities, but it's not like that was my mission statement. I've just told stories that interest me, and that I'm not seeing enough of, on groups of people and subcultures that are often not seen.

Dealing with kids, you're always going to have to deal with something. I mean, they're kids.

I cannot stand Hollywood child performances. It just reeks of artifice, and it's weird that, for some reason, Hollywood feels they have to make their child characters smarter than adults, and suddenly kids have the vocabulary of a college grad.

Kids are kids. They still need handholding. No matter how trained they are, they need to be told what to do. They need to learn lines and understand blocking. You can't just say, 'I want you to walk from here to there and deliver your line.'

I want my films to be different, to use different techniques, not just make a calling card film.

I think most of our eyes are trained to background being completely out of focus, but you can't do that with an iPhone unless you manipulate it quite a lot in post. You have to accept the fact that your film is going to look a little different on the big screen. Even though the resolution holds up, it does have something very different about it.

The iPhone always has a different look from model to model - 'Tangerine' is quite smooth, but that was the 5s. I was using the iPhone 6s Plus for 'The Florida Project,' and it has what's called a rolling shutter, and it gave it this hyperactivity and a very different, jarring feel, and we liked that.

Nobody is going to just come and give you money unless you've proven yourself, especially if you're doing something that is unconventional or unorthodox and outside the way the industry thinks.

So many films are being shot on the DSLR, that they're all starting to look the same. There's a shallow depth of field. It's a nice look, but I can always identify a film shot with a DSLR.

Tangerine' being my fifth film, I was out of favors. I couldn't afford to get the Arri Alexa or RED cameras and I definitely couldn't shoot on film.

From a filmmaker's point of view, there is something undeniably cinematic about a location like Santa Monica Boulevard, which is so chaotic and busy and over-stimulating.

All I know is this: The reason that I've gotten attention from this industry is that I just kept making films until they paid attention.