“There are people - I think this is why there are so many commercial directors doing well in big studio movies, for whom it's not a personal choice - it's "What's the coolest, most effective way to make them laugh, make them scream?" It's a very calculated approach. And that's different. It's not better or worse. It's just a very different approach to filmmaking. That's always been the case.” PeopleThinkingDifferentChoicesLaughingScreamFilmmaking Author:Ti West
“I don't think the audience goes and thinks of the movie as a piece of art - there are some independent people who may go and have a higher appreciation for filmmaking. It is a great art form, but I don't think you look at a painting and a movie with the same eye.” PeopleThinkingArtEyeAudiencePaintingIndependentAppreciationFilmmakingGreat Art Author:Antoine Fuqua
“I feel very grateful. I wasn't raised with money. My parents were schoolteachers; I was raised on a small farm. It never dawned on me that I would have a job that someone would pay me to do. Much less a job like this. It would be ridiculous if I had any complaints about it. And look - I've had the opportunity to learn an entirely new set of skills, and I'm bringing them to the work I'm doing now in filmmaking.” OpportunityParentGratefulRidiculousFilmmaking Author:Paul Marcarelli
“Filmmakers now have the freedom to create the type of movie they want. More screenwriters, directors, and producers now have the chance to see their words on screen now that VOD and streaming outlets are available. Overall, it's a good thing for filmmaking and documentarians.” ChanceGood ThingsProducersFilmmakerFilmmakingStreaming Author:Robert Greenwald
“I think coming off of "Blame", I've been talking a lot about directing. It's something that I really love and connect with. I truly consider it what I was born to do. That kind of loops in with filmmaking on the whole, because when you create something, you're also wearing a lot more hats than just director. At the same time, I also think acting is something that's very powerful in my life.” ThinkingKindPowerfulActingBlameFilmmakingVery Powerful Author:Quinn Shephard
“I really love any and all manifestations of art, really respect any kind of artistic impulse, whether it's paintings and sculptures or really good filmmaking or music. I really see the relationships between these different mediums as very fluid. I think you see that nowadays, in this postmodern context, there's much more use of different mediums in contemporary art. For me, if you're a creative person, you can choose to make a painting, you can choose to make a film.” ThinkingKindArtDifferentFilmCreativePaintingArtisticImpulseManifestationFilmmakingPostmodern Author:Lily Cole
“Every film, obviously, everyone starts out aiming at making it good, and in the end, filmmaking is really fragile. Making a film is like building a house of cards on the deck of a speeding boat, or playing chess on train tracks. Every opportunity feels like that; it's the one artistic field that's unlike most of the others.” FilmOpportunityHouseBuildingTrainTrackChessBoatArtisticFilmmakingDeck Author:Jeremy Davies
“I think auditions are set up for failure because they're not really the set experience. There's no time to develop the character. You're just looking at someone... if someone's really good in an audition, sometimes they're not good in the film. It's something you learn when you're doing short films. It's the same way that some people do well at taking tests and some people don't. But when you're on a long-term filmmaking process it's a completely different feeling.” PeopleThinkingDifferentSometimesCharacterFeelingsFilmFilmmakingShort Films Author:Cary Fukunaga
“The good thing about the Anvil school of filmmaking was that it was fly by the seat of your pants. There was no safety net.” SchoolSafetyGood ThingsFilmmakingSafety Net Author:Sacha Gervasi
“The good thing about being in advertising was a lot of the skills cross over: you have to be accountable for your jokes; you have to tell a story quickly. It's the most expensive filmmaking foot-for-foot in the world, so it does teach you how to use all of the machines and how to think of things in terms of the physical process of capturing the images. And you have to sell your work. You have to walk into whatever it is and stand up in the middle of a conference room with a storyboard in your hand and make people laugh.” PeopleThinkingWorldTermTeachLaughingJokesGood ThingsAdvertisingOver YouFilmmakingMaking People Laugh Author:Victor Levin
“Growing up and applying to college, I just imagined that I would study acting. But then, once I went to college, I realized I was more interested in all the aspects of filmmaking as opposed to all the aspects of theater, which is what you would have to do if you studied acting at a liberal arts school. And so I thought, "Oh, I'll meet directors and filmmakers, and I'm an actress, so I'll become friends with them and hopefully be in their movies." And then It worked!” ArtSchoolActingGrowing UpStudyCollegeI RealizedHopefullyFilmmakerFilmmakingLiberal Arts Author:Sophia Takal
“What's great about documentary genre, it seems to me, is that it can be experimental filmmaking. You have a license to do a lot of diverse things under the umbrella of "documentary."” DiverseFilmmakingUmbrella Author:Errol Morris
“I really like Olivier Assayas filmmaking. He always has this global - economy thing going on.” EconomyFilmmaking Author:Kim Gordon
“When I studied with Nicholas Ray he was always telling us, "If you want to make films, watch a lot of films, but don't just watch films, go take a walk, look at the sky, read a book about meteorology, look at the design of people's shoes. Because all of them are part of filmmaking." So I thought, perfect! That's a good job for me.” BookFilmPerfectDesignFilmmakingGood Job Author:Jim Jarmusch
“I'm doing a lot of research right now on what's happening in Arizona. That's where I'm at with more conventional documentary filmmaking. I think it is an urgent cause. I think I need to make something. I'm a part of it. Everybody's a part of it, and this country needs to know what's happening there in a very truthful way.” ThinkingCountryTruthfulFilmmaking Author:Lourdes Portillo
“I left film because I felt that photography was my art. It was something I could do on my own, whereas film was so collaborative. I thought as a photographer I could make something that was artistic and that was mine, and I liked that. And it wasn't until I got back into film and I have very small crews and I could do very tiny filmmaking that wasn't 100 people that I still felt that I was making something artistic as a filmmaker. So, you know, I'm an artist, and whether it's photography or film, I want my voice to be there and I think my voice is very strong in this film.” PeopleThinkingArtFilmArtistStrongPhotographyPhotographerArtisticFilmmakerVery StrongFilmmaking Author:Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
“When I was a kid, I was always going to bed creating a story and that was the birth of filmmaking for me. I would like going to the dream-state by telling the story to someone else in my mind. That was my imaginary friend; it was an imaginary audience listening to my story.” MindKidsAudienceListeningBirthImaginaryFilmmakingImaginary Friend Author:Denis Villeneuve
“To me, any kind of filmmaking that's reactive is not going to be as good as something more inventive and original.” KindFilmmaking Author:Christopher Nolan
“I think it's very valuable as an actor to throw yourself back into having that direct connection with an audience on-stage and work that muscle. It is a very different type of work and equally fascinating. I mean, I've very much in love with filmmaking because I really love the way you can tell stories with a camera and how music and everything contributes to the story in a very direct way. But I also think it's very valuable to come back to theatre, so if the right script came along I would love to come back to London and do some more.” ThinkingMeanDifferentAudienceDirectValuableTheatreFilmmaking Author:Thekla Reuten
“Part of filmmaking is always a guessing game, and part of it is always a game of trust.” ActorsGamesMovieFilmmakingGuessingSecond Guessing Author:Greg Kinnear
“In lower budget filmmaking, everything is a favor. You're pushing everybody, all the time. You're trying to get the best out of it that you can, and it has to be a labor of love, or you can't get it done.” TryingDoneLaborFilmmaking Author:Mark Sheppard
“Any film that you make, it's a very high end game of musical chairs ... but that's just the nature of filmmaking. You do the dance with a certain actor.” FilmMusicalFilmmaking Author:Eran Creevy
“There's always been this strand of filmmaking in Britain which is like socialist neo-realism. That's always been there. I've never been part of that, really; I've been much closer to fantasy.” FantasyFilmmakingSocialist Author:John Boorman
“The reason I do what I do is that I find that Asian community gives me an endless source of humour. When I entered the filmmaking business, my whole purpose was to promote and make us visible because we were very much on the margins. So, I wanted to make us mainstream. My work has helped to mainstream-ise the Asian community.” GivingReasonPurposeCommunityHumourFilmmaking Author:Gurinder Chadha
“Most Chinese filmmakers grew up watching television; they watched films on television, not in cinemas. The scope of their vision is not big enough, they're not yet detail-oriented enough. You have to watch films in cinemas for years to understand the depth and scope of vision needed in filmmaking. Directors in China usually come from an academic background; they graduate as film directors. Whereas the directors from Hong Kong learn their trade on sets, beginning at the lowest rung.” EnoughFilmVisionTradeChineseFilmmakerGraduatesAcademicFilmmakingLowest Author:Gordon Chan
“Intuition is the key to everything, in painting, filmmaking, business - everything. I think you could have an intellectual ability, but if you can sharpen your intuition, which they say is emotion and intellect joining together, then a knowingness occurs. Feeling correct is a feeling I think everyone knows.” ThinkingFeelingsTogetherAbilityEmotionPaintingIntellectualIntuitionIntellectFilmmaking Author:David Lynch
“Once I hit 25, I realized I had to do more than just be an actor. I love acting, but there's something that makes it difficult to just be a man, a grownup. Not to take away from any actors, but I knew I wasn't going to be Tom Cruise. I knew I was a character actor, which is great and I'm proud of it. But I knew that I wanted to do more. I started producing and directing and writing and stuff for the theater, and then that grew out of hand and I sort of lost my control. I've always loved the process of filmmaking. Now I'm much more into producing docs, but I want to direct features.” MenWritingCharacterDifficultActingProudDirectI RealizedFilmmakingCruiseGrownups Author:Fisher Stevens
“I have no illusions about my filmmaking work but I must add I have no illusions about anybody else's either. I am very strict with myself and I think, "no, that could have been improved", "why didn't I put a little bit more then? Why didn't we come out then?" It was what I thought was right at the time and you have to stand by that. And if it completely fails you have got to say, "But that is what I meant at the time.".” ThinkingFailingIllusionFilmmaking Author:Terence Davies
“I've been working in computer animation for 25 years. I'm obviously a devotee of the technology. I just think it's the one aspect of the medium that's going to continue to revolutionize the filmmaking. It's constantly changing and it's constantly opening up new possibilities. The technology is evolving where 2-D animation was ultimately limited by how long you could pay how many people to make a movie. I mean computers, not that it's in anyway a labor saving device, but it promises to open up exciting new technical possibilites.” PeopleThinkingMeanLongTechnologyPossibilityPromiseComputerLaborExcitingEvolveFilmmakingAnimation Author:Chris Wedge
“I learn a lot as a director from acting in other people's films and just in general. I want to try and be as involved in the art of filmmaking as possible. I feel that the only way to really do that is to take on as many roles as possible, whether it be as an actor, an editor, a director, a cinematographer. Basically, I like to help and be involved, so anything anybody asks me to do, my first reaction is to say "Yes."” TryingArtHelpingFilmActingAsk MeFilmmaking Author:Joe Swanberg
“My best business decision was becoming a writer as well as a director, and learning all aspects of the filmmaking craft. My worst business decision was licensing music that I don't own.” DecisionWorstFilmmaking Author:Alrick Brown
“I think we all go through times in our lives when we decide, "I'm going to try something else." I tried filmmaking instead of painting, and I think I enjoyed it more. So I don't paint anymore.” ThinkingTryingPaintingPaintFilmmakingRough Times Author:Samuel Bayer
“I think that there's a natural attraction to enigmatic characters, people that have decided to make a decision in their lives to live differently than everyone else. That's a very attractive quality that also happens to be good for filmmaking, people that have their own point of view and aren't looking at things the same way as everyone else.” PeopleThinkingCharacterNaturalDecisionQualityPoint Of ViewBe GoodAttractionAttractiveFilmmakingEnigmatic Author:Jim Carrey
“John Belushi infused Animal House with this spirit of guerilla filmmaking. John Landis came from that world too, and all the National Lampoon writers were from that world. It was just chaos on film. Controlled chaos, though. We stayed very close to the script. It was a very formal kind of movie, if you look at it. Formally photographed and structured, with certain elements of improv.” WorldKindFilmSpiritHouseAnimalChaosFilmmaking Author:Tim Matheson
“I love writing and the little filmmaking I have attempted, but comics is the means of artistic expression that feels most comfortable to me. It's also still a largely uncharted medium with enormous unrealized potential. I like finding new ways to communicate an idea or a feeling, ways that can't be duplicated in other media, so I take great pleasure in the invention and exploration that comics necessitates.” WritingMeanFeelingsPleasureCommunicateInventionArtisticExplorationFilmmaking Author:Jason Lutes
“When you decide you want to make a film, you start listening to everything that anyone has to say about filmmaking and reading everything, and there's a maxim about film being a visual medium, and so you need to make, in a sense, a silent movie and layer on dialogue.” FilmReadingListeningSilentDialogueFilmmaking Author:Tom Ford
“I think that directing is the ultimate martyred task of filmmaking, that it has nobility to it. It takes three years to make a film, for the most part. I think it requires the attentiveness of a mother hen. I don't know how people raise children and direct films. I'm sorry, I don't know, how can you be good at both?” PeopleThinkingChildrenFilmMotherDirectUltimateSorryBe GoodFilmmakingNobility Author:Diane Lane
“My parents were always encouraging of us being creative however we wanted to be. People say, "You didn't get pressured into having to be a director?" But it's hard to be around my dad and not be curious about filmmaking, because he thinks it's the ultimate medium.” PeopleThinkingParentCreativeDadUltimateMy DadCuriousFilmmakingBe Creative Author:Sofia Coppola
“It's always a problem when you're working with people you don't really know. Most filmmaking is about shaking hands and just starting. You know, these month - or two-month-long endeavors that millions of dollars are based on, and the people doing them don't even know each other, or know each other under pressure, or know each other when things are really... Which filmmaking is completely done under in many circumstances. You're under constant crisis, making a movie.” PeopleDoneProblemCircumstancesCrisisFilmmakingShakingUnder Pressure Author:Abel Ferrara
“I think a lot of people go into filmmaking thinking, "How can I make a career?" And so when they make their first film, they make it thinking, "Well, this'll be the one that gets me to the place where I can make the second film the way I want to make it, and that'll get me to the place where I can make $100 million on the third film." And I thought, "Well, if I put sustainability at the bottom of my priority list, then what opportunities is that going to free me up to pursue?" And that's what I've always done.” PeopleThinkingDoneFilmOpportunityBottomPrioritiesSustainabilityFilmmaking Author:Andrew Bujalski
“Most people look at a feature film and say, "It's just a movie." For me there is no border or wall between fiction and documentary filmmaking. In documentaries, you have to deal with real people and their real feelings - you are working with real laughter, happiness, sadness. To try to reflect the reality is not the same as reality itself. That's why I think that making a good documentary is much harder than making a good feature film.” PeopleThinkingTryingRealFeelingsRealityFilmSadnessWallLaughterFilmmaking Author:Mano Khalil
“Solutions require action, and one of the things I love most about documentary filmmaking is that it allows for the creation of powerful impact campaigns that can help mobilize people around certain issues.” PeopleHelpingActionPowerfulCreationSolutionsFilmmaking Author:Beth Murphy
“For me, filmmaking is an ongoing self-reflection process. I kind of push everything to the edge. I feel very exposed and fragile when I make a film. It's a process of dealing with loneliness. And it's also very dramatic - because while you are working on a film, you just realize how incapable you are of dealing with all these things. And you open yourself up, and it's like your heart is utterly exposed. And it's very tiring on a daily basis.” HeartKindFilmRealizingLonelinessLike YouDramaticFilmmakingTire Author:Tamer El Said
“It's not a choice. Either I write or I don't, especially when I'm in a foreign culture. I've lived in London for years, and I must continue my writing and filmmaking. The most important thing for an artist or an author is to continue her work. Languages and settings are the tools but not the first thing.” WritingImportantArtistChoicesCultureLanguageFilmmaking Author:Xiaolu Guo
“I just tell you what a pleasure it is to get back to the kind of filmmaking I used to be allowed to do.” KindPleasureFilmmaking Author:Frank Darabont
“Sidney Lumet is one of my favorite filmmakers. I feel like his approach to filmmaking was always so human. He was always making movies about the people. He wasn't about the tricks, you know what I mean? From 12 Angry Men on. Another film of his which I really, really love is Prince of the City, with Treat Williams, which is kind of a lost classic. Lumet is one of those film heroes that changed movies for everyone.” PeopleMenKindMeanFilmLove IsChangedHeroMy FavoriteClassicFilmmakerFilmmaking Author:Derek Cianfrance
“I think we create our world through stories. We use storytelling to escape or protect ourselves from the unimaginable and the horrible - from the real, in a way. It's like white light - if you put everyday reality through a prism you get this rainbow of colors that you couldn't see before. I'm interested in exploring the world to show the things that are invisible. And not just undocumented aspects of reality, but to actually make manifest things that have been hitherto invisible through the intervention of filmmaking.” ThinkingWorldRealRealityProtectEverydayInvisibleHorribleStorytellingManifestFilmmakingRainbowExploring Author:Joshua Oppenheimer
“An awful lot of filmmaking and playmaking is taken over by marketers and publicists, who set about to tell people what to think. And people feel safer that way. But it's not safe, and the whole wonderful thing that cinema and filmmakers can contribute is to go into the not-safe land of real life.” PeopleThinkingRealTakenWonderfulReal LifeFilmmakerFilmmaking Author:Vanessa Redgrave
“I always feel like I learn more from directors that are new, and I also am able to understand how much I really do know about filmmaking when you work with directors that maybe don't have as much experience, so you're able to sort of take the reins. I know how to do these movies, I've done so many of them and have learned from new directors who are usually willing to try new things and are more open to allowing someone like me to kind of come in and just do what I know how to do.” TryingKindDoneFilmmaking Author:Danielle Harris
“My favorite part of the whole filmmaking process is working with a fantastic cinematographer, a fantastic actor or actors, and then just creating emotions and stories. I get so excited by that. That's the part I'm utterly addicted to.” EmotionMy FavoriteExcitedFantasticFilmmaking Author:Sam Taylor-Wood