Quotes About Filmmaking

While 'Yaariyan' took me time in pre-production, I also had issues with the censor certification.

I got into filmmaking in order to tell very personal stories, and in this day and age, the opportunity seems all the more precious.

I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.

It doesn't bother me to work with so much green screen. I prefer real settings obviously.

I prefer to be a director and a narrator rather than a writer.

I prefer to make movies which not only have a message for 'then' but a message for 'now.'

My dad's a filmmaker, and my mom's an actress. She was the original understudy, actually, for Harper in 'Angels in America' and did the show for about several months while she was pregnant with my older brother. And so I grew up obsessed with film and filmmaking.

I actually carried a Panavision Platinum and a G2 when I was seven months pregnant for a film called 'Little Birds,' and the whole movie was handheld. And we were shooting in the desert. That's a 35-millimeter camera. It's huge, probably at least 50, 55 pounds, and I did all my own operating.

I think filmmaking is largely about preparation and taste and luck. If you have all of those three things, I think you will find you can work somehow.

I think with any movie, directing is more in the preparation. You just have to prepare for everything that's going to happen.

Working as an AD and producer prepares you in the sense that you know what you have to do to make a film. But nothing prepares you for your first film.

Once you've made your first feature, you know what you can do wrong and how hard it is to shoot a feature. Before you do it, you just don't know how hard it is. Once you've done it, when you're writing a second one, it's almost like you're preparing, and it's almost holding you back.

Generally in my films like 'Hearts of Darkness' or 'Picture This,' I try not to make myself a presence in the film.

For Devil's Backbone I loved it but I felt very pressured but so I was neurotic on the shoot.

I'm not only my films, but I'm pretty much my films.

It's pretty amazing to see something in your head and write it down, go out and shoot it, then see it on the big screen. It's a pretty amazing feeling.

Kubrick and I were pretty good friends.

I'd like to work with David Lynch again.

As long as I can make the films I want to make in decent conditions, I am happy.

I think I've made some pretty decent films in the '80s and '90s.

Film-makers must decide what story to tell and how to tell it.

My defining moment was when I finally went to Cannes and saw my name along with international filmmakers.

I can't imagine David Lean justifying why he went to the desert to shoot 'Lawrence of Arabia.'

We have a lot of respect for the fact that you can't make movies without money and that when money comes to the table, that money deserves to have a place in the process as much as anything else in the film-making equation.