Quotes About Filmmaking

Well, getting behind the camera is something I've always wanted to get involved with. Ever since I was doing movies like 'Zathura' I was very interested in all the different jobs on set and kind of soaking all the information up like a sponge.

Vetrimaaran expects his actors to be spontaneous. Since he mostly prefers shooting in live locations, you have to be prepared for everything when you work with him.

Sometimes you have to spoon feed filmmakers to let them know 'I am capable of this.'

I was a sports fan long before I had any interest in film-making.

Sukumar comes from a very different school of working style. He never shoots with set dialogues and scenes. Most of it is improvised on the spot. He'd tell me, 'Rakul, if this is your character, how would you behave? Show me.'

When people talk about first-timers, I always think of Spike Lee. In every film he's made, he has A-listers, but he's always giving roles to first-time actors and breaking careers. He's brought such wonderful actors into the spotlight, and I love that.

With Fincher, you can take chances and try things. And what happens is that any pretension and preparation you've done, all the square, intellectual work, you can't keep that up for 40 takes. It breaks down, and new things start popping up. This, for me, is the most exciting thing about film-making.

I have a stack of scripts that I've read - I'm in the lucky position where I get offered things - but I haven't wanted to direct many of them.

For me, writing is a part of directing. It's the first stage of directing.

I love staging action and wide-shots, not necessarily going to close-ups.

My grandpa showed me how to build stamina onset behind the scenes on 'Twixt.'

The only way you can learn about making films is by making them, by putting your stamp on the thing.

I started doing my own animated movies when I was in ninth grade; that's when I got the filmmaking bug. When I was about 16, I started writing jokes for doing stand up, and then I was 19 and started doing stand up.

I had the standard movie geek childhood, because for as long as I can remember, all I wanted to do was make movies.

It goes back to a style of moviemaking I remember seeing as a child, in movies like The Man With The Golden Arm, which I think was shot all on a sound stage.

Frank Capra was a prop man, I think. John Ford was a prop man. It was a little bit of a father and son thing, and you kind of worked your way up.

You know, I became a director out of necessity. I was writing comedies, and I couldn't find anybody to deliver it correctly.

I don't choose to make movies as small as the movies I've made. The combined budget of my two films is far under $5 million, but it's just by necessity that it ends up being that way.

I love the intimacy and the passion and the danger that go into independent filmmaking. Because it comes out of a creative necessity. It comes from people who really want to make a movie and want to make a difference and want to grab an audience by the gullet and show them something different.

I think, quite often, filmmakers kind of think so much about what the franchise will be and sometimes can neglect to put their efforts into the movie that they are actually making.

I grew up within Italian-American neighborhoods, everybody was coming into the house all the time, kids running around, that sort of stuff, so when I finally got into my own area, so to speak, to make films, I still carried on.

Because it's not always possible to shoot with a live piglet, I had to create a piglet. I went abroad and enquired about the parts, which cost almost as much as a big actor's remuneration. I decided to go for an animatronics piglet, which is a new technology.

I am definitely going to continue directing, but I am always going to try to explore new ways of making films. It really is possible to make films in different ways.

You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble. Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don't talk to anybody.