Filmmaking Quotes

I wasn't searching for a common denominator - I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking. ~ Abbas Kiarostami

It is really important that young people find something that they want to do and pursue it with passion. I'm very passionate about filmmaking. It's what I love to do. ~ Spike Lee

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. ~ Kenneth Lonergan

Collaborating on a film script involves two people sitting in a room separated by the silence of two minds working together. ~ Darlene Craviotto

But I would say maybe just from an actress's perspective, probably 'Woman Under the Influence' is the best movie of all time. The style of filmmaking and the performances ... you don't feel like you're watching a film. ~ Olivia Thirlby

The willful amnesia afflicting the sciences in general contrasts sharply with the importance given to memory by the humanities. Literature, philosophy, politics, and the visual arts, including photography and filmmaking, feed on memory. Practitioners of the humanities need memory to deepen and refine their thinking. ~ James Hillman

Before I go off and direct a movie, I always look at four films. They tend to be The Seven Samurai, Lawrence Of Arabia, It's A Wonderful Life and The Searchers. ~ Steven Spielberg

That's what I always loved about [Federico] Fellini's films: You see the weird joy of the weird filmmaking family and the abstract craziness that goes along with it, and there's something about it that's quite beautiful. ~ Tim Burton

If you think about filmmaking as an entire spectrum, starting with the writer and ending with maybe the marketing department, the actor's contribution is a rather slender band. ~ William Mapother

I foresee no possibility of venturing into themes showing a closer view of reality for a long time to come. The public itself will not have it. What it wants is a gun and a girl. ~ D.W. Griffith

I suppose once in a while, a filmmaker makes a movie that's more than just a sum of its parts, more than good acting or good filmmaking. It's something else that has nothing to do with what you've done. This is in 1999, made by people in 1999 for people in 1999 about people in 1999. ~ Sam Mendes

In order to get [Mean Streets] made I had to learn how to make a movie," says Scorsese. "I didn't learn how to make a movie in film school. What you learned in film school was to express yourself with pictures and sound. But learning to make a movie is totally different. ~ Peter Biskind

I think people like Lena Dunham really opened up the door to what was possible, and they've inspired young women to go into filmmaking and writing and directing and acting in a way that maybe they didn't before, because now there is a path and there are jobs. ~ Judd Apatow

All tales, then, are at some level a journey into the woods to find the missing part of us, to retrieve it and make ourselves whole. Storytelling is as simple - and complex - as that. That's the pattern. That's how we tell stories. ~ John Yorke

Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture. ~ Ed Wood

What I want to do with my filmmaking is help kids experience the truth and wisdom of nature no matter where they are, whether or not they have the opportunity to go to a national park. ~ Louie Schwartzberg

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.' ~ Errol Morris

I always say that I am a big fan of films but I am an even bigger fan of the filmmaking craft. ~ Fede Alvarez

When I started my filmmaking journey 17 years ago, I honestly didn't know what a documentary film was. ~ Tony Kaye

Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out ~ Martin Scorsese

Thhe essence of documentary filmmaking is how you manipulate the material to create an emotional impact, as opposed to just delivering information. ~ Richard Ray Perez

I see myself as an explorer more than a storyteller. A great storyteller, in control of her craft, must be the same person when she finishes telling a story as she was at the start. But I want to be transformed by my filmmaking, by the journey I take. ~ Joshua Oppenheimer

Filmmaking is really connected to life and all of the expressions that different arts found to allow access to life. Filmmaking touches on all of it. ~ Wim Wenders

Most filmmaking is about shaking hands and just starting. ~ Abel Ferrara

The most honest form of filmmaking is to make a film for yourself. ~ Peter Jackson

It was really bizarre, that Sabzian business. You know I had no interest in being photographed before this incident. But then not just Sabzian - many other people started pretending they were me! One of them actually got married while pretending he was me! My face became publicly recognizable soon after I decided to have a few photographs of me available in public to prevent these sorts of identity thefts. It is really pathetic, if you think of it. Filmmakers and filmmaking is so popular in Iran because all other forms of expression have been denied to people. ~ Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Most of my films have been documentaries, but I'm also very interested in narrative filmmaking. ~ Barbara Kopple

It's all about loyalty and collaboration, gathering your gang around you, finding your soulmate in filmmaking because it is a collaborative process. When failure happens, that family you gathered regroups around you and gives you the fresh energy you're lacking. ~ Matthew Jacobs

Meanwhile, back at reality..."- G.Lucas ~ Robert Lynn Asprin

I'm happy that I feel a little less out of place in filmmaking than I once was - but it's almost impossible for a playwright in the U.S. to make a living. You can have a play, like I did with 'Angels,' and it still generates income for me, but it's not enough for me to live on and have health insurance. ~ Tony Kushner

My filmmaking style of remixing came out of necessity. When I was a film theory student at UC Berkeley in the early 1990s, there were no film production facilities. The only way I learned to tell stories on film was by re-cutting and splicing together celluloid of old movies, early animated films, home films, sound slug - anything I could get my hands on. ~ Elisa Kreisinger

I try to do as much as I can, every facet of filmmaking. ~ Osric Chau

I'm a curious guy. I can't turn away from an investigative story, when it comes to the forensic analysis. I've done 33 dives, to the titanic wreck site. I've spent over 50 hours piloting robotic vehicles at that wreck trying to piece together what happened during the disaster. How the ship broke up, comparing the historical record with the forensic record. Documentaries are kind of my new life. I love documentary filmmaking. ~ James Cameron

There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness. ~ Frank Capra

Making music videos, I try to bring musicians into the logistics of filmmaking, and I try to preserve whatever's of value and achievable in their idea. If it's something I can't achieve, I tell them straight. You want to make sure that the artist really loves the idea and is committed to it, otherwise they're not going to feel great when they're up there miming it. ~ Adria Petty

Or take this girl, for example. At a meeting just outside Paris, a fifteen-year-old girl came up to me and said that she'd been to see [The Double Life of] Véronique. She'd gone once, twice, three times and only wanted to say one thing really - that she realized that there is such a thing as a soul. She hadn't known before, but now she knew that the soul does exist. There's something very beautiful in that. It was worth making Véronique for that girl. It was worth working for a year, sacrificing all that money, energy, time, patience, torturing yourself, killing yourself, taking thousands of decisions, so that one young girl in Paris should realize that there is such a thing as a soul. It's worth it. ~ Krzysztof Kieslowski

We see not because everything is visible, but because something always defies the eye, persisting beyond the remit of mere representation. This something, which Pasolini endeavors to situate at the heart of filmmaking, is preceisely 'that which always escapes from the grasp of that form of vision that is satisfied with itself in imagining itself as consicousness' (Lacan, 1998). ~ Fabio Vighi

I'VE NOTICED, FROM MY EXPERIENCE, IF THE EXTERNAL, EMOTIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF IMAGES IN A FILM ARE BASED ON THE FILMMAKER'S OWN MEMORY, ON THE KINSHIP OF ONE'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE FABRIC OF THE FILM, THEN THE FILM WILL HAVE THE POWER TO AFFECT THOSE WHO SEE IT. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky

I like figuring out where I need to be mentally so that I'm not thinking about the camera and that it's second nature. I want to get to a place where I can exist within the confines of what you can do with filmmaking and not have to think about it. ~ Anna Kendrick

What I do like is hiking. And that's what filmmaking is. It's a hike. It's challenging and exhausting, and you don't know what the terrain is going to be or necessarily even which direction you're going in ... but it sure is beautiful. ~ Joss Whedon

The majority of the filmmaking process is in pre-production. The more you've planned out the more freedom there is on set to find new stuff, to play around, find new jokes and let the actors kind of breathe - but it needs to come from a place where it's completely structured. ~ Vin Diesel

An average director directs. A good director leads and follows at the same time. ~ Kensington Gore

I'm going in a really weird I-don't-know-where direction, but I prefer anything [different] from how standardized filmmaking has become. ~ Gus Van Sant

It's all about this abstract entity called the story. It's all about the best way to tell the story, and to make a movie about the issues that this story is about. Filmmaking is storytelling, for me. ~ Jose Padilha

Tell yourself that the world is outside, that it's not to be hidden from you, that you are going to thrust yourself forward and be relaxed in the world. You have chosen a field where you're going to be hurt to the blood. But to retreat from the pain is death ~ Stella Adler

Most people don't know what they want or feel. And for everyone, myself included, It's very difficult to say what you mean when what you mean is painful. The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to ... As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad - to be willing to risk everything to really express it all. ~ John Cassavetes

It's incredible to see the creativity, beauty and hardships people capture when filmmaking is opened up and shared with the world. ~ Jehane Noujaim

I was going to design sports cars, but my father came to my college to visit me. At the time he was making a picture in Sweden and he took me there with him. I got to see Ingmar Bergman's company and I thought, 'Gee, filmmaking is a lot more fun than sports cars,' so I decided to follow him and go into acting. ~ James Cromwell

I spent several years in the film finance business, but I returned to what I loved most about the industry - actual filmmaking, producing, writing and directing. ~ Gabriel Campisi

I am co-writing a screenplay now and I'm working on the rights to another story I want to do. So I plan to produce and direct. So, for me, I don't really feel that I am vulnerable to that sad baggage that comes with the business of filmmaking. ~ Kerry Washington

I want to put everything I think I've learned about filmmaking and storytelling and put it to the test in other areas. ~ Peter Jackson

The 90s were the decade in which studio filmmaking became a much more purely corporatized process, when their crassness ceased to operate on such a relatively individual scale. ~ Matthew Specktor

The first thing I look for, in addition to a performer's range, is a performer's look in comparison to the character. That is very important to me as a casting director. ("The Making of Dual Mania: Filmmaking Chicago Style," 2018) ~ Cat Ellington

Everything about filmmaking is incredibly weird, and there's nothing natural about watching yourself on the big screen or hearing your voice. It's that same thing that you feel when you watch yourself on a video camera and you hate the sound of your voice - it's that times 800. ~ Eddie Redmayne

The excitement about independent filmmaking is that they're a little more open to taking chances. The studios are a little more careful, as far as who they choose for their film and what they're known for and staying in the genre because they know what works. ~ Malin Akerman

I think, at the end of the day, filmmaking is a team, but eventually there's got to be a captain. ~ Ridley Scott

We have seven pillars of development. India has a cutting edge information technology industry. We are setting up a technology park. We would like to see technology penetration iin education. Besides, we would like to see cooperation in industries like fashion, filmmaking, ship-building, education, health and energy. ~ Kamla Persad-Bissessar

I really got into filmmaking through photography. ~ Todd Phillips

I got into filmmaking in order to tell very personal stories, and in this day and age, the opportunity seems all the more precious. ~ Ira Sachs

Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes. ~ Robert Altman

The field (of filmmaking) is suddenly sexy, ... so it's deluged with these wannabes who say 'I don't want to be a secret agent, I'll be a filmmaker.' I think a lot of people are really kind of naive. ~ John Landis

I am not an actress. I am a mistress of disguise. Acting happens to be one of the perks ~ Janna Cachola

Filmmaking is essentially about entertainment, but it's amazing to realize that it has this other muscle that could actually help. Do you know what I mean? People permit entertainment to wash over them, but every once and a while, entertainment - and this is entertaining - also galvanizes something else and that would be a really good thing to have happen in this case. ~ Ken Burns

I see filmmaking as a business and pity anyone who regards it as an art form. ~ Herschell Gordon Lewis

If I've seen the movie, it means it's an influence on my own filmmaking. Every movie has a reflection in 'Night Watch.' ~ Timur Bekmambetov

'Jurassic Park' was able to get away with big, dynamic filmmaking that might be out of place in another kind of story. ~ Colin Trevorrow

Some men don't gel when it comes to work - you have different work ethics, different opinions, different points of views, different methods of filmmaking - and we didn't gel. ~ Antoine Fuqua

There's a thing I really mind hearing, when someone says: "That's not my kind of film, I don't want to go and see that ... " I don't believe that, I don't believe that it's possible to write off a whole genre of filmmaking - "oh I don't like subtitled films", or "I don't like black and white films", or I don't like films made before or after, a certain date" - I don't believe that. ~ Tilda Swinton

Los Angeles is Hollywood and Hollywood is Hollywood Blvd. It's the first thing you want to see. It's the only thing really that you know about as far as Los Angeles is concerned. And so you go and you look at Joan Crawford's hands and feet and the whole history of American filmmaking is encapsulated in that one little area on that one street. That street, to me, has always been the street of dream. ~ Helen Mirren

There is a straight-forward definition for 'Independent Filmmaking'. The term references a group of films that are financed by money that comes from outside the studio system. In a literal sense that is what it means. ~ Andrew Neel

I had no education in filmmaking. I started with a 8mm camera. I made 34 films, and little by little I gained more experience in filming. ~ Bahman Ghobadi

Talent is less important in filmmaking than patience. ~ Terry Gilliam

Adaptations are fun for me because they connect to the idea of filmmaking I had when I was a kid. I would see a movie and think: 'I'm gonna make that movie.' ~ Noah Baumbach

Some people live, eat and breathe art, and they love acting and filmmaking. I've got other loves. I love animals. I love teaching. I love kids. That's always something in the back of my mind. ~ Kay Panabaker

I think documentary filmmaking is a braver way to make films because it's real, and you're really there. ~ Jamie Bell

Directing, editing, and everything about filmmaking has definitely changed me as an actor. ~ James Franco

We've kind of grown up in a post-Star Wars era, and what Star Wars did to cinema, in terms of an explosion of that kind of blockbuster culture. It's thrown up a generation of geeks. With the evolution of computer games and the Internet, that's all impacted on us as a generation, and affected the creative element of that generation enormously. So whereas the different schools of filmmaking. ~ Simon Pegg

At times doc filmmaking feels more rewarding creatively. Because you are creating something out of pure cinema - instead of narrative cinema, where you've got a script and a cast and you build from your foundation, whereas in documentary, you're building out of chaos. ~ George Hickenlooper

Filmmaking is a difficult process. There are the logistics of making a film. You have to do your part, and then change the entire thing around to do someone else's part. A lot of the magic is lost, in between that, and you have to figure out how to get it back. ~ Aaron Eckhart

Filmmaking is something I have to do. It's not something I particularly want to do. ~ Peter Mullan

Filmmaking is such a collaboration. At a certain point, I suppose you do have to let go and trust the people you're working with. ~ Madonna Ciccone

I'm sure I can make a movie that doesn't feel like a seventies movie! But the truth is, that's my favorite era in American filmmaking. To me, those were the great years. ~ Ben Affleck

Games have has as much an impact on Hollywood filmmaking as MTV music videos did. ~ Bruce Feirstein

Filmmaking is a completely imperfect art form that takes years and, over those years, the movie tells you what it is. Mistakes happen, accidents happen and true great films are the results of those mistakes and the decisions that those directors make during those moments. ~ Jason Reitman

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. ~ Gabriel Campisi

Filmmaking is the antechamber that enables the brain to speak to the language of drifting consciousness and daydreams – a misty reality that can only be imagined in the intersection between analysis and possible interpretations ~ On Joseph Bernard

My roommate at Yale University introduced me to the auteur theory of filmmaking. I soon became a big fan of the works of John Ford, Kenji Mizoguchi, Ernst Lubitsch, and Stan Brakhage. I then decided to make my own films! ~ Lloyd Kaufman

It's just the overall lack of privacy. I've always been a very shy person and so it invades that a lot. It goes with the territory so I'm very grateful to be able to do what I do. I love it and I love acting. I love being on set. I love the whole practice of filmmaking but the lack of privacy is hard. Fans are amazing because for the most part it's just love that they are sending to you. It's beautiful. ~ Austin Butler

I've been extremely lucky to work with Elmer Bernstein, Howard Shore over the years, but I've always imagined films with my own scores, because I don't come from that world or that period of filmmaking. And so how could I make up my own score on a film like this where it isn't necessarily made up of popular music from the radio or the period; it isn't necessarily classical music. But what if it's modern symphonic music? ~ Martin Scorsese

The advice you give to young directors for sure is to go out and become some version of a successful movie actor. Do that first and say yes to people like Terrence Malick and Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen when they come and offer you movies. It's a great front row seat to filmmaking. ~ Sean Penn

Even in traditional filmmaking, you're always trying to find novel ways of telling stories, and this is different. ~ Rick Heinrichs

Filmmaking in general is just really where I'm putting all of my energy. ~ Renee O'Connor

Documentaries for me always felt kind of limiting. I wanted to go bigger. And I also love actors, and I love performance. So feature filmmaking was always the intent. ~ Peter Landesman

For me, I see filmmaking as art. ~ Emily Browning

I'm drawn to filmmaking that can transport me. Film can immerse you, put you there. ~ Kathryn Bigelow

A long-playing full shot is what always separates the men from the boys. Anybody can make movies with a pair of scissors and a two-inch lens. ~ Orson Welles

I love editing. It's one of my favorite parts about filmmaking. ~ Steven Spielberg

I like racing. I love the speed and I'm a very kinetic person in terms of filmmaking. I love the movement of film more than anything else. ~ George Lucas

Woody is so musical in his filmmaking. I've never worked with anyone I've trusted so completely. He won't let you hit a false note. ~ Dianne Wiest

I usually get involved in the interviews about the animators and the filmmaking in general, because I had a chance.I got to know, not only Marc Davis, but Frank Thomas, Artie Johnson, Ward Kimball, all these great animators, and just ask them all these questions about how they did certain things, what their trials and errors were, the ups and downs. ~ Andreas Deja