Most people see a documentary about the meat industry and then they become a vegetarian for a week.

And the biggest improvement I see between 'Up in the Air' and 'Juno' and 'Thank You for Smoking' is that 'Up in the Air' deals with the complicated human stuff in a way that my other films have not. It's a more articulated film, and because of that, I'm most proud of it.

Filmmaking is finding a piece of granite and you start to chip away and then you have the shape of a head, the shape of the arm, you can see the shape of the face and the face starts to gather character. You have to find it.

What I do feel is that 'Up in the Air' is the most indicative film of 2009. It is the portrait of 2009.

We were sitting there in shock. And I turned to other people who had worked on the film, and we were completely confused. But the audience didn't seem to notice or care.

And over the course of the last six years, as I've directed more features and commercials, I've become better at articulating exactly how I want the audience to feel.