How do you work quickly and still get beautiful shots?

Hopefully you spend a lot of time looking at things, and seeing what you like and don't like. You learn technically what works and what doesn't work. You spend a lot of time practicing ... and then you trust your instincts. You follow your spirit. The most important thing for an artist to do is to follow their spirit and not their technology. The technology follows. Instincts are everything to a filmmaker.

What does a director of photography [DP] do?

I don't know if there is a technical description for a DP. The director of photography ... collaborates with all the departments and tries to find a cohesive whole that communicates the director's and the writer's vision. He's a scientist. He's an artist. ... He's a good partner. ... You do have to know the technical skills to make it work, not only just how to communicate ideas on a piece of plastic that runs through a camera 24 frames per second, but you have to be able to communicate technically how to make everything work in each one of the departments and then how an editor's going to piece the film pieces together. So you have to be able to determine what pieces you need so you can help the director get the material that they need to communicate the idea.

What's been the biggest challenge on this project?

The amount of work that we have and the amount of time that we have. We are doing a feature film in television schedule.

What's been your favorite part about working on this project?

I love the story. I love communicating ideas about other societies, other civilizations, and other people that normally don't get communicated. There's a whole niche of society that's not getting spoken of. The Native Americans' story is not being told. This is certainly a very small portion of that story, but it tells a part of their story that's not told that often. And I like independent ideas and dangerous, risky ideas.

How has it been to work with Chris Eyre?

Chris is a very interesting filmmaker. He's a young filmmaker. He has very specific ideas about what he likes and doesn't like. He's a lot of fun to work with. He's taught me a lot. I've really learned a lot working with him. I enjoy working with him. He has his own story to tell. ... The history of the body of his work is going to be very interesting if we look back on it, because he's got a great deal of passion. He loves his people, and he's got stories that all of us need to see and hear. I can't wait to see what he's going to do in the future. It's been really interesting working with him. He's had a new, fresh approach to everything that he's done. And it's been a great joy.

It reminds me of when [cinematographer] Greg Toland worked with Orson Welles for the first time. Welles had never made a film before, and he didn't do the things the way most directors did. He stepped on Toland's toes all the time. Greg's crew went to Welles and said: "You can't do this. This is not the way it's done." Welles apologized to Toland and said: "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to step on your toes." Toland, who was a master filmmaker, said: "No. No. No. You do it your way. I'm learning something new every day." That's the way I feel with Chris is that I like doing it his way. It's a very interesting approach, and it's different than the way I'm used to working. I like his ideas, so I've had a great time working with him.

What in particular have you learned from him?

The way he looks at things. He looks at things with young eyes. He looks at things as a Native American. I'm a white guy, and I don't look at things the same way. It's a fresh approach, and a very valid important approach in our 7-Eleven mentality. In this country, we try to homogenize all filmmaking so that it's all the same, but Chris hasn't been taught that yet, and I hope he never gets taught that.

Over the course of your career, you've worked with a lot of first-time filmmakers. Why?

The truth is when I came to Hollywood, nobody started anybody. It was a closed shop. It wasn't just racially prohibitive; it was prohibitive in all ways. It was a ruthlessly cold, cruel, horrible place. I decided that, if I ever made it that I wouldn't be that way; that I would try to help everybody and let themselves sort each other out. It's not my obligation to find out who's the good person and who's the bad person; it's my obligation to help everybody. I've always tried to do that. So in doing that, I've probably helped some great people and I've helped some bad people. But the fact of the matter is everybody I help, I learn more. And so as much as I teach, I teach myself more than I've taught them.

What are your hopes for your work in the future?

My hope for the future of film is that we start telling stories that have some value to individual cultures; that we don't lose sight of who we are as people; that we don't lose sight of our individual stories; that each one of us has a very important, valuable place in this universe, and we have stories to tell. It's time that we forget about the big Jerry Bruckheimer blow-up films and start telling stories that have validity to our children. ... There's something we have to tell our children, the stories that our children need to hear about ourselves.

What limits your artistic vision?

I've filmed everywhere in the world. I find that the things that limit us as filmmakers are bureaucracies. ... The tragedy is that American filmmakers are no longer being able to make films in America because our bureaucracies do not allow us to make films here. We really [did] invent filmmaking, but, regrettably, we can't work in our own country anymore. . It's very hard making films in America. It's tragically hard. Places like this are where filmmaking was virtually invented -- I mean, Cecil B. DeMille stopped in Arizona before he went to California to make, I believe it was The Squaw Man. Filmmaking is older here than it is in Hollywood. Yet it's difficult to do here because there's so many prohibitive restrictions placed upon workers and upon locations. ... And the worst part about that is that ultimately, people that watch our movies are going to say, "Gee, I'd like to go to that location; that's supposed to be the Grand Tetons," or "Gee, I'd like to go to that location; that's Hollywood," or "That's Washington, D.C." The truth is that when they go to those places, they're not going to find those locations. They're going to find them in Vancouver and Toronto. ... We communicate the ideas and the hopes and dreams of this country. If we don't do it here, and if it has to be done in another country, we're losing a great part of our fundamental art.