blondandfun
2008 January 25th, 10:26
Thought this was cool, some directors quotes, my favs are highlighted:
A movie that costs only $1.6 million doesn't have to be a cultural event to turn a profit.
--Steven Soderbergh
I let the actors work out their ideas before shooting, then tell them what attitudes I want. If a scene isn't honest, it stands out like a sore thumb.
--David Lynch
It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.
--Robert Altman
As filmmakers, we can show where a person's mind goes, as opposed to theater, which is more to sit back and watch it.
--Darren Aronofsky
What I look for in a script is something that challenges me, something that breaks new ground, something that allows me to flex my director muscle. You have got to think fast in this business, you've got to keep reinventing yourself to stay on top.
--Michael Bay
If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.
--Kathryn Bigelow
You see so many movies... the younger people who are coming from MTV or who are coming from commercials and there's no sense of film grammar. There's no real sense of how to tell a story visually. It's just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, you know, which is pretty easy.
--Peter Bogdanovich
Art is a sense of magic.
--Stan Brakhage
My films are an extension of my poetry, using the white screen like the white page to be filled with images.
--James Broughton
Jack Nicholson is a textbook actor who's very intuitive. He is absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real.
--Tim Burton
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.
--James Cameron
A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.
--Frank Capra
In England, I'm a horror movie director. In Germany, I'm a filmmaker. In the US, I'm a bum.
--John Carpenter
I use dancing to embellish, extend or enlarge upon an existing emotion.
--Gower Champion
The funniest thing is that all the things every director goes through, I thought I could shortcut, but there was no getting around those issues.
--George Clooney
We tend to do period stuff because it helps make it one step removed from boring everyday reality.
--Ethan Coen
I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.
--Bill Condon
I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.
--Francis Ford Coppola
A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren't so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way, or accept it and go in some other direction?
--Wes Craven
In the future, everybody is going to be a director. Somebody's got to live a real life so we have something to make a movie about.
--Cameron Crowe
And I don't think I'm giving away any secrets here, but there are a lot of terrible scripts in this town.
--Frank Darabont
Acting is by far and away the toughest job, in terms of film-making and maybe even the arts. How they do it I don't know, but they have to be allowed to get their satisfaction.
--Jonathan Demme
I'm a storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move!
--Howard Hawks
People watch luck go by them, and they're so blind they never reach out and grab it.
George Roy Hill
One of the great things about being a director as a life choice is that it can never be mastered. Every story is its own kind of expedition, with its own set of challenges.
--Ron Howard
Most of my characters are romantic rather than sexual. I think that's an essential difference in my pictures. I think they are more accurate in portraying young people as romantic - as wanting a relationship, an understanding with a member of the opposite sex more than just physical sex.
--John Hughes
The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.
--John Huston
I'm like a navigator and I try to encourage our collaboration and find the best way that will produce fruit. I like fruit. I like cherries, I like bananas.
--Jim Jarmusch
Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity.
--Chuck Jones
Movies are art and the spirit of the movie depends on the creators.
--Lloyd Kaufman
To me, thoughts are fun and art is fun. The strength of our society should not be idle entertainments but the joy of pursuing ideas.
--Philip Kaufman
You must find the note, the correct key, for your story. If you find it, everything will work. If you do not, everything will stick out like elbows.
--Louis Malle
Be smart, but never show it.
--Louis B. Mayer
Commitment is the enemy of resistance, for it is the serious promise to press on, to get up, no matter how many times you are knocked down.
--David McNally
I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.
--Sam Mendes
A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.
--John Milius
I think that film tends to penetrate the actor and distill the inherent quality in them that no matter what character they're playing, the film registers that quality that's sort of their essence, their soul.
--Rebecca Miller
In terms of the feeling of the piece, I cant think about what people are gonna think about it, what are the critics gonna say, I'm trying to bring some resolution, and realize that myself. It's a struggle; it's a process that gets us this.
--Godfrey Reggio
A style is not a matter of camera angles or fancy footwork, it's an expression, an accurate expression of your particular opinion.
--Karel Reisz
A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.
--Jean Renoir
If somebody has a better idea than me, I'll take it if it surpasses what we have on the page because at the end of the day, it's me that takes the credit anyway!
--Guy Ritchie
I love making people laugh. It's an addiction and it's probably dysfunctional, but I am addicted to it and there's no greater pleasure for me than sitting in a theater and feeling a lot of people losing control of themselves.
--Jay Roach
Don't be told something is impossible. There's always a way.
--Robert Rodriguez
And later I thought, I can't think how anyone can become a director without learning the craft of cinematography.
--Nicolas Roeg
A good character is always slightly unexpected, or a character that makes a turn or where you can see the character arc and watch he/she develop... not obvious... obviously a good guy or bad guy.
--George A. Romero
It's always been my formula to get the next picture set up before anyone's seen the last one.
--Alan Rudolph
If you don't have the story and the unfolding of the trajectory of the saga, it's like getting in a car and not having any gas.
--Gus Van Sant
Each time you come away, you know, you learn something. You get better at your craft.
--John Sayles
Humor of a sort is never very far away, I hope, because I like to look at things with an amused eye, because that is what I am.
--John Schlesinger
Those artists who say that somehow therapy or analysis will thwart their creativity are completely misinformed. It's absolutely the opposite: it opens closed doors.
--Paul Schrader
Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.
--Martin Scorsese
People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at.
--Ridley Scott
A lot of actors talk about doing their homework, but very few of them do it.
--Tony Scott
Is it possible that there are no coincidences?
--M. Night Shyamalan
I'm actually part of a number of minorities. I grew up being a horribly awkward kid. A terrible student. And now I find myself as a filmmaker, and you feel kind of alone in the world because you're separate from everyone else.
--Bryan Singer
Anyone that comes from any medium, whether it they come off the bus to Hollywood for the first time or they're established musicians, if they come to act, they have to have respect for the craft
--John Singleton
A movie that costs only $1.6 million doesn't have to be a cultural event to turn a profit.
--Steven Soderbergh
Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about.
--Steven Spielberg
But I suppose film is distinctive because of its nature, of its being able to cut through time with editing.
--Oliver Stone
A writer should have this little voice inside of you saying, Tell the truth. Reveal a few secrets here.
--Quentin Tarantino
I like actors that are good with pantomime and that can transmit a lot by their presence and attitude more than through their dialogue.
--Guillermo del Toro
I don't know if there will ever be an ideal way of selling an original picture. Because everything you're doing, you're inventing.
--Peter Weir
A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.
--Billy Wilder
Understand life's mysteries, - as mysteries to be lived.
--Robert Zemeckis
A movie that costs only $1.6 million doesn't have to be a cultural event to turn a profit.
--Steven Soderbergh
I let the actors work out their ideas before shooting, then tell them what attitudes I want. If a scene isn't honest, it stands out like a sore thumb.
--David Lynch
It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.
--Robert Altman
As filmmakers, we can show where a person's mind goes, as opposed to theater, which is more to sit back and watch it.
--Darren Aronofsky
What I look for in a script is something that challenges me, something that breaks new ground, something that allows me to flex my director muscle. You have got to think fast in this business, you've got to keep reinventing yourself to stay on top.
--Michael Bay
If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.
--Kathryn Bigelow
You see so many movies... the younger people who are coming from MTV or who are coming from commercials and there's no sense of film grammar. There's no real sense of how to tell a story visually. It's just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, you know, which is pretty easy.
--Peter Bogdanovich
Art is a sense of magic.
--Stan Brakhage
My films are an extension of my poetry, using the white screen like the white page to be filled with images.
--James Broughton
Jack Nicholson is a textbook actor who's very intuitive. He is absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real.
--Tim Burton
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.
--James Cameron
A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.
--Frank Capra
In England, I'm a horror movie director. In Germany, I'm a filmmaker. In the US, I'm a bum.
--John Carpenter
I use dancing to embellish, extend or enlarge upon an existing emotion.
--Gower Champion
The funniest thing is that all the things every director goes through, I thought I could shortcut, but there was no getting around those issues.
--George Clooney
We tend to do period stuff because it helps make it one step removed from boring everyday reality.
--Ethan Coen
I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.
--Bill Condon
I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.
--Francis Ford Coppola
A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren't so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way, or accept it and go in some other direction?
--Wes Craven
In the future, everybody is going to be a director. Somebody's got to live a real life so we have something to make a movie about.
--Cameron Crowe
And I don't think I'm giving away any secrets here, but there are a lot of terrible scripts in this town.
--Frank Darabont
Acting is by far and away the toughest job, in terms of film-making and maybe even the arts. How they do it I don't know, but they have to be allowed to get their satisfaction.
--Jonathan Demme
I'm a storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move!
--Howard Hawks
People watch luck go by them, and they're so blind they never reach out and grab it.
George Roy Hill
One of the great things about being a director as a life choice is that it can never be mastered. Every story is its own kind of expedition, with its own set of challenges.
--Ron Howard
Most of my characters are romantic rather than sexual. I think that's an essential difference in my pictures. I think they are more accurate in portraying young people as romantic - as wanting a relationship, an understanding with a member of the opposite sex more than just physical sex.
--John Hughes
The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.
--John Huston
I'm like a navigator and I try to encourage our collaboration and find the best way that will produce fruit. I like fruit. I like cherries, I like bananas.
--Jim Jarmusch
Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity.
--Chuck Jones
Movies are art and the spirit of the movie depends on the creators.
--Lloyd Kaufman
To me, thoughts are fun and art is fun. The strength of our society should not be idle entertainments but the joy of pursuing ideas.
--Philip Kaufman
You must find the note, the correct key, for your story. If you find it, everything will work. If you do not, everything will stick out like elbows.
--Louis Malle
Be smart, but never show it.
--Louis B. Mayer
Commitment is the enemy of resistance, for it is the serious promise to press on, to get up, no matter how many times you are knocked down.
--David McNally
I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.
--Sam Mendes
A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.
--John Milius
I think that film tends to penetrate the actor and distill the inherent quality in them that no matter what character they're playing, the film registers that quality that's sort of their essence, their soul.
--Rebecca Miller
In terms of the feeling of the piece, I cant think about what people are gonna think about it, what are the critics gonna say, I'm trying to bring some resolution, and realize that myself. It's a struggle; it's a process that gets us this.
--Godfrey Reggio
A style is not a matter of camera angles or fancy footwork, it's an expression, an accurate expression of your particular opinion.
--Karel Reisz
A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.
--Jean Renoir
If somebody has a better idea than me, I'll take it if it surpasses what we have on the page because at the end of the day, it's me that takes the credit anyway!
--Guy Ritchie
I love making people laugh. It's an addiction and it's probably dysfunctional, but I am addicted to it and there's no greater pleasure for me than sitting in a theater and feeling a lot of people losing control of themselves.
--Jay Roach
Don't be told something is impossible. There's always a way.
--Robert Rodriguez
And later I thought, I can't think how anyone can become a director without learning the craft of cinematography.
--Nicolas Roeg
A good character is always slightly unexpected, or a character that makes a turn or where you can see the character arc and watch he/she develop... not obvious... obviously a good guy or bad guy.
--George A. Romero
It's always been my formula to get the next picture set up before anyone's seen the last one.
--Alan Rudolph
If you don't have the story and the unfolding of the trajectory of the saga, it's like getting in a car and not having any gas.
--Gus Van Sant
Each time you come away, you know, you learn something. You get better at your craft.
--John Sayles
Humor of a sort is never very far away, I hope, because I like to look at things with an amused eye, because that is what I am.
--John Schlesinger
Those artists who say that somehow therapy or analysis will thwart their creativity are completely misinformed. It's absolutely the opposite: it opens closed doors.
--Paul Schrader
Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.
--Martin Scorsese
People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at.
--Ridley Scott
A lot of actors talk about doing their homework, but very few of them do it.
--Tony Scott
Is it possible that there are no coincidences?
--M. Night Shyamalan
I'm actually part of a number of minorities. I grew up being a horribly awkward kid. A terrible student. And now I find myself as a filmmaker, and you feel kind of alone in the world because you're separate from everyone else.
--Bryan Singer
Anyone that comes from any medium, whether it they come off the bus to Hollywood for the first time or they're established musicians, if they come to act, they have to have respect for the craft
--John Singleton
A movie that costs only $1.6 million doesn't have to be a cultural event to turn a profit.
--Steven Soderbergh
Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about.
--Steven Spielberg
But I suppose film is distinctive because of its nature, of its being able to cut through time with editing.
--Oliver Stone
A writer should have this little voice inside of you saying, Tell the truth. Reveal a few secrets here.
--Quentin Tarantino
I like actors that are good with pantomime and that can transmit a lot by their presence and attitude more than through their dialogue.
--Guillermo del Toro
I don't know if there will ever be an ideal way of selling an original picture. Because everything you're doing, you're inventing.
--Peter Weir
A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.
--Billy Wilder
Understand life's mysteries, - as mysteries to be lived.
--Robert Zemeckis