Directors Quotes - Page 38

As soon as you start making a film that's expensive then the studio wants total control over all elements of it because they want to get all their money back. If you make a smaller film you can try a lot more things because you can have control over it and not just be a hired director. The lower the budget the more freedom you have.

I know there were things emanating from me. I was not aware of what attracted all these directors to me.

As a director, try to be humble and not to overdo it, not overcoverage and over-covering the scene.

I think when you pay attention to the shots, you're aware of the fact that there's a director. Really, it's the director's job to disappear and allow the movie to just feel.

Each one of my films is personal; each one of my films is emotionally autobiographical. And I like directors who do that.

There's very exciting directors who haven't made a feature yet. That's what's cool about the job - the ever-changing landscape of people you could potentially work with.

I want to really stress this, I am a director, an actor, producer, action choreographer, and I'm also an investor.

I look for a director with a script he likes a lot, but I'm probably after the directors more than anything.

David Cronenberg is the most provocative, original, and consistently excellent North American director of his generation.

I'm always looking for opportunities, even when they're not offered to me. I will have no hesitation to pick up the phone and call a director or call a writer.

I rode it once, which was up the driveway in the opening credits of the show. I didn't know how to stop it. I actually nearly killed the director of photography, and I smashed into the sound truck.

What you want is a comfortable environment that you feel you can invent in. Because film is such a lumbering, technical, huge, great Neanderthal thing, it's hard to create that little space of peace, and calm, and creativity, and ease. That's what you want the director to create for you, so that when you walk on the set, you forget all of that, and the fact that it's costing gazillions of dollars a second.

When I'm choosing projects to be a part of it's always a combination of so many different things. The primary thing is the director. But a very important element is, is it different enough from anything else I've ever done, or what I've last done.

An actor and a [theatre] director are both what I would call interpreters of work. We interpret a work, just as a musician will interpret a composer's work, we interpret the work of a playwright. We are servants of the theatre and I've always believed that. We must serve what has been written, that's what we're there for.

Frank Miller is more of a visionary than any director I've ever worked with, and he achieves that vision better than anyone I've ever worked with.

As an actor, most of the time, you only have so much say in how, what and where things go. As a director, you really get to paint a bigger picture. You have many more brushes to use.

I was an assistant director for a year, and I realized, 'God, this is a lot of hard work. This is going to take time. So what's the shortcut? What's the better option?' Then thankfully, someone said, 'Why don't you become an actor?'

Some directors, like Stevens [George Stevens], shoot full circle, 360 degrees, and that's what's right for them. I generally shoot at about a seven to one ratio. But part of that is because I've worked on every screenplay, so I'm further along in the visual concept.

I imagine as an axiom you could say that the better the play, the less "creativity" the director need exert.

Curiously enough, I was one of the first to have some say in Hollywood. By sheer accident, I had four successes in a row in the early 30's and, although I was still in my 20's, I demanded and received approval of cast, story and director. I don't know how I got away with it, but I did!

When Shana Alexander interviewed me for Life magazine in 1952, she gave up after 4,000. At one time or another, I've worked for every studio in Hollywood, for almost every director with most of the actors and actresses.

The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.

I'm the most experienced cinematographer in this medium, so there's no point in having that extra conversation in the middle of the loop. You're making the film in relation to what's happening now, and you can't really affect what's happening now. It's not like you're in control of anything in front of the camera. If you're calling yourself the director and you're not the cinematographer, I think you're kidding yourself.

I think a good director can embrace any genre and it's the kind of thing where you always want to do something different. You always want to challenge yourself.

Usually directors hire me because I'm what they are looking for. But once in a while, and it's very rare, they will hire me and then try to make me over.