"This record was so, so important to me. My friend went to see Slipknot play an instore show at a Virgin Megastore and he came back with this tape with The Workhorse Movement on one side and Glassjaw on the other, essentially Roadrunner Records trying to pitch their next big acts. He gave me the tape saying 'This is fucking rubbish, you should just have it,' and I listened to Workhorse movement and thought it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. But then I listened to Glassjaw and it was so raw and pure, it had that same urgency that I thought Nirvana must have had in the day, no frills, no production to hide behind, it was stripped back so there was no cloak, just dagger. I listened to this album until my CD didn't work anymore. I loved the whole story behind Glassjaw too, how Ross Robinson went and saw them play 30 seconds of a song, told them to stop and then they had a fight with him. It's rock & roll perfection. At that stage I'd played in a couple of bands but I was just taking music in. You're open at that age to everything, and this just really poured in."

"My first one is 12 Angry Men. I remember I watched it at school, I think I saw it at fourteen for the first time. And when you’re that age, you kind of want to watch big blockbuster movies and all that kind of stuff. And I just couldn’t get over the fact — basically it doesn’t leave the room for the whole movie. And it’s just these guys sitting around discussing this crime, and whether or not they’re going to find the guy guilty or not. I just found it so engaging and stuff. You know the cast and stuff was just incredible with Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb, and all these incredible actors. I just thought it was mind blowing, you know? I think it was based on a radio play — I don’t know. And then I figured it was a theatrical play, and then they made a movie. That’s the other thing, I was also just beginning to start to want to be an actor. Or join the theatre group in my hometown. It all sort of happened at the same time, and I was beginning to understand it a little bit more about how they’re engaging, and how you can hold people’s attention for that long just by the performance itself."

"I was very fortunate. My dad was a musician, he would take me around to recording studios in Houston. I got to hear some really rippin’ stuff at a very young age. There were all of these rambunctious country artists and guys playing this hod-rod hillbilly music. It blew my mind, as you can imagine. Well, one day we to went ACA Studios, and I got to see BB King play. I must’ve been about seven years old. What a trip! “Needless to say, he made a big impression, and later on, I got ahold of this record, which has always been one of my favorites. Something about it just resonates. The lead lines that BB plays are chilling. Although it’s called ‘Singin’ The Blues,’ on this album I think the guitar really comes to the fore as a strident solo instrument. “It’s often been said that Billy could do more with one note than most guitarists can do with 100, and I think it might have started right here. He had developed his technique so fully - it was so unique and elegant – that he was able to play these ‘blue’ notes on songs that even had almost cha-cha beats. This is a record I never have to rediscover because it never went away"

"I’ve seen Koyaanisqatsi more than any other movie. For years, I would just put play the disc on repeat the way some people might play their favorite record. But more importantly, Koyaanisqatsi has had a profound effect on me as a filmmaker and editor. It’s not so much the obvious stuff (i.e. the time lapse cinematography, editing to music, etc.) but rather this age-old notion that an audience can experience a story just through imagery. Audiences are smart—give them some guideposts, throw out some complex ideas, and they will do the rest. Koyaanisqatsi serves as a constant reminder that film is a visual medium where explanation (and even plot) can sometimes be intrusive, and the most powerful statement a film can make is the one that the audience arrives at. The Koyaanisqatsi supplements are also really instructive. There are a couple candid doc pieces with the director, Godfrey Reggio. At one point, he says he explored having Allen Ginsberg recite poetry throughout the film. At another point, he talks about filming surreal Terry Gilliam–like scenes (at an enormous budget) that he ultimately decided to cut out. It reinforces the idea that with filmmaking, just like in life, sometimes you have to go through a lot of bad mistakes to discover what really works."

"This one isn’t a high school movie, but more a college-age movie. It’s called Mazes and Monsters and it stars Tom Hanks. It’s about the dangers of role-playing games, and if you play these role-playing games, you’ll lose touch with reality. Tom Hanks is a kid who gets too into their version of Dungeons and Dragons, which they call Mazes and Monsters. He loses touch with reality and thinks he really is on the quest, and disappears into New York City. His friends have to try and find him. It’s definitely worth checking out if you can find it. It might be one of those movies that just disappeared. I think it was a made-for-TV movie, but it’s always affected me. I saw it when I was a kid on the Saturday afternoon matinee movie, and it just has this ending that is so bleak that I’ll never forget."