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Filmmakers Quotes

Browse 16 quotes about Filmmakers.

Filmmakers Quotes

“People outside the industry pruriently ask how he gets through sex scenes, nudity, baring it physically. They miss the point. Sure, that takes some courage. But, man, it’s ALL like that. Try crying in front of sixty-three people, most of whom are there to do jobs like lighting your face so the tears are in focus while the snot and spit fall behind — or surrounding you with mics to make sure the sound of your sobbing, disconsolate self falling apart is picked up cleanly, so you won’t have to dub over it in post six months later. That crew of people, expertly watching you turn feral with the grief that’s causing your character to make monumentally bad decisions leading to the epiphany that finally turns it around in the third act. Could anything be more naked, more intimate than tearing your soul inside out in service to the story? It’s tantric. Visceral.”

ActorsActingFictionEmotionsVulnerabilityShort StoryFilm IndustryFilmmakersPeak ExperienceActor Filmmaker
Book:Unbraiding: Actor | Producer | Father: A Story in Three Strands
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“On the one hand, these filmmakers are the descendants of the May Fourth movement at the beginning of the century. One of the important ideological components of the May Fourth movement was its radical antitraditional stance, exemplified by its famous slogan: "Smash the Confucian Temple" (zalan kongjiadian).”

ChinaCinemaTaiwanCultural StudiesFilmmakersMainland China
Book:Confronting Modernity in the Cinemas of Taiwan and Mainland China
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“All I cared about was if the shot was pretty,' she said. 'You're a young filmmaker and you get a nice lens and the dailies can make it seem like you got a movie, but you don’t. You start editing it and realize you’re left with a bunch of beautiful images, but no story. Everyone on set is too easily impressed by a nice camera. And then there’s the writing. I guess it’s a pet peeve—when perfect people write in disease or abuse in order to make a story emotional. It hurts me. There doesn’t need to be cancer or death. I would cry at a simple line—like... a sad husband telling his wife that he’s concerned their dog is the only thing that keeps their marriage interesting.”

FilmConfessionThe Goodbye SongFilmmakersAspiring ArtistsMaking A MovieWriting ScreenplaysYoung Filmmakers
Book:The Goodbye Song
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“Harvey Weinstein took pride in not paying bills,” recounted Miramax’s former chief financial officer John Schmidt. “But when you stiff a filmmaker you are stiffing the very lifeblood of what your business is. The whole independent film business is based on championing the small guy.”

FilmmakingCheatVendorsFilmmakersDeadbeatHarvey WeinsteinIndependent FilmsMiramax
Book:Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence
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“The first time Polly Platt met Jim Brooks to discuss Terms of Endear­ment (1983), she was distinctly unimpressed. “I was infuriated that he was that late,” she recalls. “Fifteen minutes or half an hour, who cares, but to be a whole hour late.” She waited for him at Gladstone’s, a tacky tourist joint on the Pacific Coast Highway. “I just remember I didn’t like him ... I just didn’t like his turn of phrase ... I didn’t like the way he referred to the people. I didn’t like the people he was talk­ing about working with.”

FilmmakingFilmmakersFilmmaking Quotes1980s HollywoodWoman In Business
Book:Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?: The Truth About Female Power in Hollywood
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“Regarding Clint’s methods (as a director), he was a very impatient man who doesn’t really plan his pictures or do any homework, truthfully. He figures he can go right in and sail right through these things. Clint was just as impatient as an actor, especially in an action picture when directing himself. For example, Clint was always blowing his lines. It’s very hard for him to say more than four lines consecutively. And no matter if Clint forgot his lines, he would insist that the camera pick up the dialogue just where he had left off, without going back and starting the lines over. It was the cameraman’s problem to choose different angles and make the pickups, or transitions, work. Notorious for doing his acting scenes with multiple pickups, Clint had an ironclad belief that everything could be fixed in the editing room. Nobody among his fans would notice the incongruities.”

DirectorsFilmmakerBad MoviesFilm MakingFilmmakersClint EastwoodFilm Editing
Book:Clint: The Life and Legend
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