Quotes About Filmmaking

I grew up loving Ridley Scott and Tony Scott and Michael Bay and Adrian Lyne.

I carry too much baggage... the baggage of David Lean, Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal.

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

As a filmmaker, every tool you get to tell the scene better is important.

Sure, they were simple desk lamps with only a minimal amount of movement, but you could immediately tell that Luxo Jr. was a baby, and that the big one was his mother. In that short little film, computer animation went from a novelty to a serious tool for filmmaking.

Motion capture has become very specialized but also still just a tool of filmmaking.

Shooting on the iPhone has become more of a directors' tool to lower inhibition of first-time actors and nonprofessionals. While it's helped me become more mobile, no pun intended - running around, finding tight areas and different ways of moving the camera - to me it's more about using this device to catch candid moments. That's the biggest thing.

I mean, I certainly wouldn't want to paint myself as, you know, the evangelist for practical effects or some sort of anti CG guy because it's really a tool. Like filmmaking is this toolbox and you use what's appropriate in relation to the story.

I really don't feel like I'm in any kind of contest. Except, maybe, with myself. Just want to learn and create and grow. Get better all the time with these filmmaking tools. I don't expect perfection from myself. Just progress.

'Fury' whetted my appetite for a bigger canvas and this idea of world creation. You can do amazing things as a filmmaker if you have the proper tools, and those are time and money.

I think that technological tools that filmmakers use to tell stories, in a perfect world, need to become invisible. When it's brand new and it's never been seen before and you're birthing this stuff, it's very much on people's minds.

As far as the balance between being a journalist, being an artist, being a storyteller - documentary filmmakers are all three of those things. The balance between them is affected by the film itself, the topic of the film.

I find myself asking questions that as a filmmaker I never thought I would ask. Like I get a call from a magazine for a feature and my first question is, 'Cover or not?' Interview invite from a leading channel? I have stopped asking the topic. I'm just like 'Primetime or not?' If I am invited and put in the second row, I can be distraught for days!

There's no Marvel list. As a filmmaker, you are not only encouraged, but you are really supported to let your voice shine through. You have total freedom to push, scratch the surface and try things.

When I was in high school, I felt totally alienated from the world, but I loved movies. They were my escape, but coming from a disadvantaged community, I never knew that filmmaking was an option for me. A program like School of Doc would have been a game-changer.

My first movie was totally improvised.

Well, first of all, making films is a collaborative process. You need people. You need people you trust and love and who are your friends. People you can work with.

I think about it all the time. I love filmmaking. Whether I'd be in front of the camera or behind the camera, I just love that world.

You have to understand that crew members make movies so they're seeing a lot of actors all the time in their career acting.

These last few years, working with Tim Burton, it's been the best time I've ever had.

I suppose I've been working for a long time, so I've seen all kinds of filmmaking. I can fit into anything, and it doesn't feel that weird or that fascinating.

I found my father's Super8mm film camera when I was around eight years old and started shooting with it. I had no idea what I was doing at the time, but that's really where my filmmaking began.

As a writer and a director, I simply don't have the time I need to write and prep the movie I would have wanted to make because of the fixed and tight production schedule.

As a first-time director, you cannot have final cut. But as a producer, you can have final cut.