Quotes About Filmmaking

What's great about documentary, it seems to me, is that it can be experimental filmmaking. You have a license to do a lot of diverse things under the umbrella of 'documentary.'

It is impossible to give a performance that makes you unaware of the fact that you're watching an actor and be really involved in all aspects of filmmaking.

Usually I design the lighting and when I have the physical set there, I'm not good at going out loosely and saying, 'Do you what you want, give it to the editor, and he'll figure it out.' I physically then walk on with the actors and I say, 'Let's walk until you guys feel the space works for you, and tell me when all that happens.'

You never know where your next movie is going to come from. You just have to fall in love with something because it's going to be taking up every moment of spare time in your life for about two years. You're going to be dreaming about it and thinking about it and becoming obsessed with it.

I was speaking to Ridley Scott the other day and he makes a film every 18 months. He's amazing really.

That's easy to answer: I never had any special appetite for filmmaking, but you have to make a living and it is miraculous to earn a living working in film.

Getting to work with good filmmakers and getting to play good characters in films is so special.

I like doing as many special effects in camera, as much as possible.

I'm of a generation of director that came up understanding special effects.

Find your own specific voice in filmmaking and go for it. Either people will get it or they won't and that's what it's all about.

It's not about choosing a specific genre; that's not how I go about deciding what movies to make.

I think I'm always conscious of not letting things fit into a specific box. Being a filmmaker and trying to chart a career, you never want anyone to be able to pigeonhole you into one specific thing.

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.

I guess that in this process of trying to incorporate or to be faithful to the films I admire so much, that's how I start to find my own voice. The admiration I have for filmmakers, this gratitude, perhaps that's my only way to become specific.

There's a method to the madness in filmmaking, where everything's very specifically laid out, the shots and what they need - but there also can be a freedom to allowing the actors to find genuine moments.

We are filmmakers, and we are specifically trying to entertain people.

I take particular care in authenticity and specificity when working in cultures not my own. Every aspect of the filmmaking here was meticulously researched, and not just by me but across every department.

I'm a filmmaker, but my working procedures are different. All my basic structuring is done during the filming. You know, how long I keep the shot, the exposure or the speed - slower or faster, etc. That's structuring. And then there is a second stage of structuring that comes later when I begin to put those pieces together.

HBO spends almost a month perfecting an episode. They shoot at the same speed that you would shoot a major motion picture, and they give you all of the things that you need to succeed. They really do support their artists.

Since I have spent so much time with film-makers, and I understand the process, I would love to direct a film some day.

I spent my 20s making film after film, often in very adverse conditions. You'd fly back from somewhere - Beirut, the Falklands, South Africa - on Saturday, and you'd have 24 hours to cut your film, and it would go out on Monday night.

But with my last film, Spider it was agony. The money was always disappearing, nobody got paid, it was very difficult - and it's very distracting from the process of making the movie, of course. So I think things have been getting harder and harder.

I liked writing with my friends and making our own little stories. Making a movie like 'Spider-Man' never even crossed my mind.

I don't know if I wanted to be Spielberg; I would never say that.