I usually do about five cuts as a director. I haven't ever directed a film where I haven't made five passes through the movie, and that takes a long time.

I get very, very anxious on the set. I have a thousand ideas and I don't censor myself. I wind up cutting some of them out in the editing room. I shoot needless footage and then don't use it later on in the process.

I've kept the people who've been in my career who I feel are my family. Kathy [Kennedy] had been with me since 1978. Janusz Kaminsky, my cinematographer, has made every movie with me since Schindler's List. Michael Kahn has cut every movie I've directed since 1976 when we made Close Encounters together. Rick Carter has done more than 15 of my directed films as a production designer.

The greatest films ever made in our history were cut on film, and I'm tenaciously hanging on to the process. I just love going into an editing room and smelling the photochemistry and seeing my editor wearing mini-strands of film around his neck.