Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you're a director. Everything after that you're just negotiating your budget and your fee.
John Schlesinger had one of his friends designing it and he had never done a film before. Ten days before it started, they didn't have any costumes. I was rung up and joined up.
At age 10 or 12 he's going to boarding school in the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight is, of course, down at the bottom of England just off South Hampton.