Quotes About Filmmaking

To make films, you have to have boundless energy; you have to work and play with others really, really well, and I'm really a more contemplative kind of person. I like to sit at home and think, a lot.

I really didn't want to be boxed into becoming a certain kind of film-maker - becoming the Maori story film-maker because I had made those short films.

Stephen Frears is brilliant and has made movies that inspired me for my whole life.

I think Anand Rai is one of the few brilliant directors we have.

Making movies is never going to get better than working on a Coen brothers project.

I have a big affinity for the Coen Brothers.

You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble.

It's hard to get the right elements together, get the right cast, get them at the time you need them, get the script completely there, and get the right budget.

For many years, I was on working on films which were so small of a budget that I could not even build a set. So, when I was finally able to work on set, it was a rewarding moment. I felt the same feeling when the camera changed from 16 mm to 35 mm.

My dad was a low budget film director. I grew up as a kid making movies, based on the love of seeing what my dad was doing.

As long as you keep your budgets small, there's a way of making films.

Not all of our movies work, but we take shots, and we're able to do that because we really stick to low budgets.

When you write and direct your own film, you basically know exactly what you want. Or you hope to. For the studio, it actually can make life a little easier, because if you have a bunch of questions, they only need to call one person.

Neither Rainer Werner, nor any of us could have succeeded, or produced the number of films that we did, just on our own. We showed our films to each other, discussed them vigorously and rarely agreed.

Filmmaking, like any other art, is a very profound means of human communication; beyond the professional pleasure of succeeding or the pain of failing, you do want your film to be seen, to communicate itself to other people.

Working with Rajamouli and Karan is home ground for me now, having worked with them for such a long time.

I'll tell you one thing. I've never heard a director saying that the dailies suck.

When I say that I am going to do an American film, I didn't want to suddenly go off into a completely different world that which bears no relation to the style of filmmaking that I'm used to.

Unless you're making Marvel movies, I think CGI usually suffers, especially in mid-budget-range horror movies where you see CGI.

Francois Truffaut was my godfather on 'Sugar Cane Alley.' He believed in me and in that story, and told everyone that it should be made.

I didn't have a lot of men to ask questions of when I was starting out. There were two female directors people suggested I talk to when I was starting out, and they were Nancy Meyers and Kathryn Bigelow.

I have my own ideas when it comes to making cinema. My films should be of my liking and suit my convictions.

I'm better suited to be a director, I think. I see myself as the general author. I hate the word 'auteur,' because it sounds so solitary when filmmaking is anything but solitary.

3D is obviously not as suited to drama and romantic comedies. But for what I do, I felt that 3D was a very, very appropriate technology.