In between showing clips Shyamalan selected from "The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable," and "Signs," Shyamalan shared what was going on in his life during the making of those films and a little about his own background. Shyamalan comes from a family of doctors (he joked they've got the whole spectrum covered from a coroner to a pediatrician), but "Star Wars" and "E.T." inspired him to get into filmmaking. The fact his first two movies flopped ("Praying with Anger," "Wide Awake") spurred him on to keep creating films, even though he wasn't convinced he would ever be successful. In fact, when "The Sixth Sense" was released, Shyamalan believed he'd failed again. A negative review in The New York Times had him convinced no one would get the movie. Despite that bad early review, "The Sixth Sense" went on to make $26.7 million during its opening weekend and has earned $661,500,000 to date worldwide.
Noting not everything in the IMDB is always accurate, Siegel inquired about Shyamalan's middle name. Shyamalan confirmed 'Night' is a middle name he chose when he obtained U.S. citizenship and that the name Night comes from the American Indian culture. Shyamalan said most people select something ordinary, something very American, but he felt Night fit him well, joking that with his choice in films it was a good thing he didn't pick something light and cheery.
Like his previous films, "The Village" isn't a special effects film. Shyamalan uses visual and audio details to get the story across. If he would have been the director of "Troy," Shyamalan said we would have seen two guys fighting with each other behind a wall, with just the sound of a massive amount of soldiers heard in the background. He deliberately stays away from special effects and doesn't believe movies should be created in the editing room.
After spending time answering Siegel's questions, the floor was opened to pre-selected audience members for a special Q&A session. Here's a sampling of the questions that were asked during the event:
What is your screenwriting process? Do you isolate yourself and write them in one shot? How much research do you do and do you seek a lot of feedback during that process?
I’m going to answer them backwards. No, because I’m very weak and I can be moved around. “Yeah, you’re right. That’s a terrible idea. I won’t do that.” “The thing about the guy being dead at the end…You’re right about that.” (Laughing) I’m very weak and nervous that way so I don’t give anybody the thing until it’s practically done, until it’s virtually done where I can feel confident that I really have it so that no matter what…I know I have something.
The screenwriting process is a little different each time. On “The Village,” which was the longest one and the hardest one because of the period nature of it, I just kept writing notes notes notes notes notes in this book. “How about she’s like this? How about this? What about this?” And it just filled up pages and pages and pages and it started to become a procrastinating tool, which is very easy to happen with writing. The list was so big that when I decided to start writing it, I had a problem putting it together. It was too many things to put in one cohesive story, so I probably wouldn’t let myself go that far with the note process anymore. Then I write an outline and then I write the draft. And if I’m really in a bad emotional state, let’s say for example “The Village” bombed and I’m in a bad emotional state. I force myself to write that first draft and call it a bomb impact so that I won’t be troubled by… I try not for it to be a bomb impact, but if that’s the case I’ve just got to get it out. It’s not so daunting if you have 120 pages in front of you. And even if they all suck, you still have 120 pages.
It’s a hard process. Like right now, I’m just at the end of the – not the end, the middle – of the promotion process. I’ve done probably in the last three days of work, probably 200-250 interviews. 250 interviews means brain-numbness. You just don’t want to talk to any human being again. And when you’re done directing, you don’t want to make a decision about fries on the side or medium rare. You don’t want to make a single decision. It’s really fun to go back to writing, which is a totally different art form. It’s kind of a [respite] for me from all this physical activity with other people. I can go and be a hermit for a little bit.
