When I was in architecture school, rather than giving us drafting boards and t-squares and lead pencils and stuff they gave us all the same tools that places like Digital Domain and ILM used to make features films or special effects. They gave us all these digital tools like Alias and Mya and Soft Image and all these kind of high-end computers, so I came out of architecture school knowing how to use all that stuff. And I started making short films at night.
Once I got out of architecture school I decided not to be an architect, I just started my own little design studio.
I think my formative experiences were really in junior high, where at a typical public school we were doing little genetic experiments, very classic experiments.
I was also very lucky to be able to work with talented people while I was learning. I didn't actually go to fashion school. I worked with Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy which was a really pivotal experience for me. He taught me a lot about being faithful to your own voice and to really believe in your own voice and that's made a big difference.
I was not a very popular kid in high school, and I had this idea that the way that I dressed would change how liked I was. It was that kind of Pygmalion story. I think, ultimately that's probably why I became interested in fashion, its transformative power, and how it can change your identity.
I was at the Royal Art School. That was a preparatory school specially for art teachers. You see, it was not so much for the development of artists. But we had there terribly stiff training.
I was a good pupil at primary school: in the second class I was writing with no spelling mistakes, and the third and fourth classes were done in a single year.
I go by the "Miles Davis school of production and band-leading", where you pick the best musicians you can, you provide them with a minimum of direction, and you just let the music happen. I've seen it work time and time again.
Mac [Barnett]and I both had times when we moved, started new schools, and we know how hard that was, figuring out your identity and who you're going to be at the new school.
I don't think esthetic schools are important. What is important is the use that is made of them, or whatever the individual writer does.
I studied painting, sculpture and video in both undergrad and grad school, but I've always been more interested in music and I've always admired music that can evoke a cinematic experience.
Sometimes I feel like there are people just waiting for me to fall. The funny thing is, I can't give them anything. I have just never been a partier, even in school.
'Lizzie McGuire' was my big thing when I was younger. I did buy some pencils and back-to-school stuff of hers because she was on it. I loved her.
At school, I basically wear one pair of jeans and sneakers for months on end.
Even now that I'm married and 28, my room's still intact the way it was when I went to high school.
First day of school, make sure that you know your locker combination.
I was in every club and extra-curricular activity at high school, and I was in the National Honor Society.
I'm deeply curious about Jewish things. I've toyed around with the idea of going to rabbinical school.
I often think about how my sons will come to know about September 11th. Something overheard? A newspaper image? In school? I would prefer that they learn about it from my wife and me, in a deliberate and safe way. But it's hard to imagine ever feeling ready to broach the subject without some impetus.
It can take a long time for some people to find out how to ground themselves, and film sets are an odd atmosphere to do it in - especially if, like me, you finished school early.
When I left school, I wanted to be an artist, specifically a painter.
There has been so much recent talk of progress in the areas of curriculum innovation and textbook revision that few people outside the field of teaching understand how bad most of our elementary school materials still are.
It is a commonplace by now to say that the urban school systems of America contain a higher percentage of Negro children each year.
As a matter of record, New York City spends a higher portion of its budget on instruction and associated costs within the schools themselves than any of the other 100 largest districts in the nation.
I wrote the first book, and I thought people would say: 'Separate and unequal schools in the City of Boston? I didn't know that. Let's go out and fix it.'
