Filmmaking Quotes - Page 18

• I remember in The Conversation, they brought all these coats to me, and they said: Do you want him to look like a detective, Humphrey Bogart? Do you want him to look like a blah blah blah. I didn't know, and said the theme is 'privacy' and chose the plastic coat you could see through. So knowing the theme helps you make a decision when you're not sure which way to go.

  Francis Ford Coppola

  Knowing, Decision, Want

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• No comedy should be longer than 90 minutes. There's no such thing as a good long joke.

  John Waters

  Long, Directors, Comedy

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• There are a million ideas in a world of stories. Humans are storytelling animals. Everything's a story, everyone's got stories, we're perceiving stories, we're interested in stories. So to me, the big nut to crack is to how to tell a story, what's the right way to tell a particular story.

  Richard Linklater

  Animal, Ideas, Nuts

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• Final cut is overrated. Only fools keep insisting on always having the final word. The wise swallow their pride in order to get to the best possible cut.

  Wim Wenders

  Wise, Pride, Cutting

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• I think I read films having grown up around the pre-production and post-production aspect of the filmmaking medium, a lot more than most young people who are in acting would have experienced. I do think about scripts in a different way. I can't just read a script as an actor. I don't know how to do that.

  Alice Englert

  Movie, Thinking, People

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• If you think about it, episodic filmmaking has not been something that people have really done.

  Tony Gilroy

  Movie, Thinking, People

  "Tony Gilroy, ‘The Bourne Legacy’ Writer & Director, On Continuing The Franchise Without Matt Damon". Interview With Mike Ryan, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 30, 2012.

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• I don't think there is any one route to directing.... Other than that I think you just have to think 'By any means possible' and take any job you can that will get you experience. I also did a lot for free. I got paid virtually nothing for my first film, but it changed my life.

  Mary Harron

  Jobs, Mean, Thinking

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• Always get to the set or the location early, so that you can be all alone and draw your inspiration for the blocking and the setups in private and quiet. In one sense, it's about protecting yourself; in another sense, it's about always being open to surprise, even from the set, because there may be some detail that you hadn't noticed. I think this is crucial. There are many pictures that seem good in so many ways except one: They lack a sense of surprise, they've never left the page.

  Martin Scorsese

  Block, Inspiration, Thinking

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• I've been having a lot of fun exploring different aspects of filmmaking, like writing and producing. There isn't a specific plan and I usually don't know what's going to be the next thing I do.

  Oren Peli

  Fun, Writing, Different

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• I feel like when you do things with such a small budget, it actually makes you be more creative... and allows you to concentrate more on the story and the characters. I think that there is something about dirty, gritty and raw filmmaking that makes it feel a little more natural and makes it easier to connect with the action.

  Oren Peli

  Dirty, Character, Thinking

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• The biggest thing people tell me is that I'll be jaded real soon and that the allure of filmmaking will lose its magic. Not necessarily the fame, but that special thing you create onscreen.

  Dayo Okeniyi

  Movie, Real, People

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• It's dangerous to think too much about how a film will be received. Filmmaking is not a popularity contest. Some would disagree.

  Julia Leigh

  Movie, Thinking, Actors

  "While You Were Sleeping: Julia Leigh's Dream World". Interview with Craig Hubert, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 30, 2011.

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• Although filmmaking is collaborative and involves trust, ultimately it is the director who holds the whole picture together in their head.

  Julia Leigh

  Movie, Together, Directors

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• You know, the great thing about acting or, indeed, filmmaking in general, is that we're all given a reason to do research. You kind of have to, really, if you want to know what you're doing, but it opens up this whole new understanding.

  Danny Huston

  Movie, Understanding, Acting

  "Danny Huston on playing villains, Nick Cave, and more". Interview with Will Harris, www.avclub.com. November 12, 2012.

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• You mustn't look at a film with only one point of view.

  Jafar Panahi

  Views, Directors, Looks

  "The Case of Jafar Panahi – An Interview with the Iranian Director of The Circle". Interview with Stephen Teo, sensesofcinema.com. July 2001.

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• Be what we make, and not who we are.

  Catherine Breillat

  Directors, Who We Are

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• No 'mise en scène' has the right to be repeated, just as no two personalities are ever the same. As soon as a 'mise en scène' turns into a sign, a cliché, a concept however original it may be, then the whole thing - characters, situation, psychology - become schematic and false.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Character, Two, Personality

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• When a sound can replace an image, cut the image or neutralize it. The ear goes more towards the within, the eye towards the outer.

  Robert Bresson

  Eye, Cutting, Sound

  Robert Bresson (2016). “Notes on the Cinematograph”, p.29, New York Review of Books

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• Work very very hard. This business is no joke. Make sure you know what you want or you might be taking someone else's view instead of your own.

  Zoe Cassavetes

  Views, Directors, Want

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• For me, I see filmmaking as art.

  Emily Browning

  Art

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• I was a film student. I became an actor but I thought I'd be pursuing filmmaking originally.

  Dermot Mulroney

  Actors, Students, Film

  "Mulroney and Amazing". AMC Interview, www.amc.com. June 2002.

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• Even on a $100 million film, people will complain that they haven't got enough money and enough time, so that's always going to be an element in filmmaking.

  Ryan Kwanten

  Movie, People, Enough Time

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• 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

  Movie, Inspiring, Choices

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• I love editing. It's one of my favorite parts about filmmaking.

  Steven Spielberg

  Editing, My Favorite

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• Films can only be made by by-passing the will of those who appear in them, using not what they do, but what they are.

  Robert Bresson

  Film, Made, Passing

  "The Films Of Robert Bresson: A Retrospective" by Rodrigo Perez, www.indiewire.com. April 18, 2012.

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