Originally published on Variety.com

“When [the festival] propositioned a masterclass, it occurred to me to bring to your attention the website because the idea was to take people behind the adventure of what directors do when you build a film like ‘Ferrari’,” he said. “There has never been a website quite like this because we knew that we were doing [the website] when we were shooting the movie.”

Mann’s “Ferrari Expanded,” accessible through a $65 dollar fee, features over 200 videos and 3,400 documents on the making of the film, which stars Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley and is set in the summer of 1957 as Enzo Ferrari is on the brink of bankruptcy while also dealing with escalating family tension. Among the material available, visitors are able to access behind-the-scenes videos on the making of the film, including two dedicated sections to the shooting of the central Mille Miglia Race, plus expansive character notes written by Mann accompanied by interviews with cast and crew.

“I think directing films is the most exciting thing anyone can do in life,” added the director. “Building a film like ‘Ferrari’ is a fascinating world to live in for a year and a half. We wanted to share [this world] with people so we built this website for people who love film, cineastes, [those who] study film and also to preserve the adventure of making ‘Ferrari’.”

The director said that the idea first came to him when one of his daughters mentioned he should be preserving the material he created through the filmmaking process. “I was interested in being able to communicate and tell a story of what it is like to make a film direct from me to the public, without intermediaries or marketing considerations,” he added. “This is the raw experience of what we do.”

Asked about what directors Mann would like to have that level of access to in terms of their creative process, the filmmaker promptly responded with the Three Amigos: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro, plus Stanley Kubrick. “The amount of research and depth that a director will go into is ten times greater than what you’re seeing in their film. Some of it’s boring but some of it is fascinating,” he said.

Elsewhere during the brief conversation that followed Mann’s demonstration of the platform, the filmmaker avoided going into detail about the production of much anticipated sequel to the 1995 thriller “Heat,” saying simply that the script “has to be finished pretty soon” and that he would be doing so “on the plane ride back to Los Angeles.”

On top of “Heat 2,” Mann also expressed a desire to at last make his dream project about the Battle of Huế, a major conflict that took place during the Vietnam War in 1968. The director has long wanted to work on the project, having used some of his research on the event to shape the backstory of Al Pacino’s Lieutenant Vincent Hanna in “Heat.”