Quotes About Filmmaking

Filmmaking is a much more collaborative thing than literature, so you know you're going to be working with a group of people at the start. You know it's going to be a compromise.

2015 was an interesting year for me. After finally getting back behind the camera at the end of the summer to shoot the CW's 'Arrow,' I found myself a couple of months later in a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, trying to convince half a dozen security guards to let me make my EEOC appointment despite my expired driver's license.

With Christopher Guest films, we have a lot of say.

Growing up in the digital age of filmmaking, I'm as guilty as anyone of overshooting.

I still like the run and gun action movies and how truly dangerous it can be to make these films.

On one hand, as a filmmaker, I don't want to make a movie with guns everywhere.

I liked Guru Dutt, the way he used songs and the way he shot songs. He was a class apart.

I came to the cinema industry to become a director from the inspiration of Guru Dutt and Shantaram.

I wish I was born 20 years earlier so I could have worked with Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, and K. Asif.

I think, to be a director, sometimes you need to have certain hunches - you have to believe in some gut feeling.

Our brains have this habit of quilting dreams from the fabrics of our lives. As a filmmaker, I get to do it for a living.

I love making movies, but a movie becomes your entire life for, like, two to two and a half years. There's no way around it; if you're really going to be serious about a movie, it has to be your life.

Documentaries require an enormous amount of grit and empathy - and that is something women are incredibly strong at.

I think when you're young and have that first burst of energy and make five or six pictures in a row that tell the stories of all the things in life you want to say... well, maybe those are the films that should have won me the Oscar.

That's a battle we are always fighting whenever we cut trailers or promos for films. We always wonder how much to say, and every filmmaker wants to say the minimum. You don't want to reveal your film and ruin the viewing experience.

The '80s were a time of technical wonder in filmmaking; unfortunately, some colleges didn't integrate their film and theater departments - so you had actors who were afraid of the camera, and directors who couldn't talk to the actors.

Ah, there's a director. Astonishing, Spike Lee. A feisty guy, but a guy who's, I think, incredibly misunderstood. I think people review his politics or his color as opposed to his filmmaking sometimes. Because he's a wonderful, wonderful filmmaker and a lover of the art.

It's wonderful to work on footage by someone who understands how to get it to cut right, which a lot of directors don't.

My work on titles was a marvelous opportunity to learn about filmmaking. I think I touched on just about every aspect of the process, both creative and technical. And I worked with many wonderful people.

It's a wonderful thing to see 'Wonder Woman' directed by a woman. That did have an affect on the character, the , and the nuances of that film. That's the same thing my wife, Mara Brock Akil, and I are doing taking on 'Black Lightning.'

I'm so entranced by what unfolds in front of the camera. It seems wonderfully out of my control.

The journey of filmmaking is so amazing. You start off with great confidence, and develop insecurity at the time of release. When you are ready with the finished product, you are constantly wondering if you have been honest to the story you started out with, if you got what you wanted. One is too close to the project by then to be objective.

For John Woo, it is quite difficult to make a movie in Hollywood in his own style. Because Hollywood is based on a producer system, it is difficult for a director to express himself using his own style of filmmaking.

Woody is so musical in his filmmaking. I've never worked with anyone I've trusted so completely. He won't let you hit a false note.