Zoetrope Screenplay Quotes

I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay. ~ Kate DiCamillo

There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay. ~ Richard Attenborough

If the director himself writes the script or screenplay of the drama, movie etc., the direction becomes perfect because he already imagined each shot nicely in his brain while writing the screenplay! ~ Md. Ziaul Haque

I set out to write a screenplay but, since my early 20s, had dreamed of writing a novel. ~ Graeme Simsion

The personal screenplay- where you dive into the terrifying depths of your soul, unearth the most intimate details about yourself, and put it on paper for the world to see. Proceed with caution, for madness lies ahead. ~ A.D. Posey

Everyone thinks that 'Chinatown' is the best screenplay. I'm not sure it is. ~ Patricia Marx

The hardest single thing you do is get the bloody screenplay right. ~ Ridley Scott

Everyone in Hollywood has a screenplay. ~ Bryce Dallas Howard

I need to narrow things down, start pruning back. Until then, I'm a whirring zoetrope of half-thoughts and worries. ~ Craig Silvey

It's much like writing a screenplay with someone else and that's how we view it, I think. ~ Christopher Darden

On the one occasion where I did try writing a screenplay, I found the rewriting just unendurable. ~ Alan Moore

Usually if you read a screenplay, no matter who's writing it, the bad guy is always written as a one-dimensional bad guy. ~ Mickey Rourke

I really just love to open a blank document and spew, whereas with a screenplay I have to be more judicious. ~ Diablo Cody

Writing a screenplay is like writing a big puzzle, and so the hardest part, I think, is getting the story. ~ Grant Heslov

You cannot live in Los Angeles for any period of time without eventually trying to write a screenplay. It's like a flu bug that you catch ... Even the plumber has a screenplay in his truck. ~ Gilda Radner

If I want to write a movie, I'll write a screenplay, but if I have an idea for a book, it's something that I think can only be done novelistically. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

The job of the screenplay is to identify and extract the essence of the story from the novel and reconfigure it for the screen, maintaining its essence in a different vehicle. ~ Barry Eisler

The fundamental difficulty that most novelists face when they are trying to adapt their own book into a screenplay is realizing that a screenplay is a completely different way of storytelling, and it has limitations. ~ Barry Eisler

You're trying to create a screenplay and your screenplay is there to give you a structure, rigidity, situational awareness, who the characters are, what do they want, what's the shape of the thing. ~ Paul Greengrass

We now live in a world both in film and television where everything is based on something. You point out, "Star Wars" was an original screenplay, "Raiders of the Lost Ark," an original screenplay, "Ghostbusters" an original screenplay, "Back to the Future." All these things that people love were original ideas many years ago. ~ Alfred Gough

Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay. ~ Elmore Leonard

A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built. ~ Nicholas Meyer

The essential lesson of the zoetrope is this: movement, indeed all progress, even the passage of time, is an illusion. Life is the repetition of stillness. ~ Josiah Bancroft

To me, the ultimate crime in an adaptation is the crime of reverence. A novel is one form of media, a screenplay is another, and a movie is yet another. There's even reverence to a screenplay. ~ Christopher McQuarrie

You sell a screenplay like you sell a car. If someone drives it off a cliff, that's it. ~ Rita Mae Brown

If I get lucky and I can choose, I would always choose a really good story and screenplay, even if I don't know the director. If there's a good screenplay, there's a chance that something good is going to happen. ~ Ayelet Zurer

The lively oral storytelling scene in Scots and Gaelic spills over into the majority English-speaking culture, imbuing it with a strong sense of narrative drive that is essential to the modern novel, screenplay and even non-fiction. ~ Sara Sheridan

I wrote 'Yellow Submarine' for the Beatles. I wrote the screenplay for 'The Games,' about the Olympic Games. I wrote 'Love Story,' both the novel and the screenplay. I wrote 'RPM' for Stanley Kramer. Plus, I wrote two scholarly books and a 400-page translation from the Latin, and I dated June Wilkinson! ~ Erich Segal

'Diary of a Teenage Girl' was my first American movie. It was my first movie in an American accent. It's based on a graphic novel, which was written in 2002 by someone called Phoebe Gloeckner. It was turned into a play by Marielle Heller, who then wrote it as a screenplay for Sundance Labs. ~ Bel Powley

I can never read this book, just like I can never see a movie that I wrote a screenplay for. I can read it and see it physically, but I can't accurately judge it. I'm too close to it. If I read it ten times I'll have ten different reactions. ~ Richard Price

Once I was in college, I was actually trying to write a comedy screenplay and I wrote basically the worst movie ever and just threw it away and never showed anybody. Everyone needs to get that first bad screenplay out of your system before you start writing other stuff. ~ Scot Armstrong

The problem with the screenplay is that it's not literature, and it's not a film. It's a very weird, technical kind of blueprint that will be absolutely transformed into something else that is not that, you know? Honestly, a screenplay is no literature. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I want to have more original-screenplay Oscars than anybody who's ever lived! So much, I want to have so many that - four is enough. And do it within ten films, all right, so that when I die, they rename the original-screenplay Oscar 'the Quentin.' And everybody's down with that. ~ Quentin Tarantino

Jerry picked up the technique of visualizing the story as a movie scenario; and whenever he gave me a script, I would see it as a screenplay. That was the technique that Jerry used, and I just picked it up. ~ Joe Shuster

I would love to write a screenplay for 'Badlands' one day. I don't think I could ever have the patience to do it; I don't even have the patience to write songs. I write some of the shortest songs ever because I don't have the patience. ~ Halsey

If there's a good screenplay, there's a chance that something good is going to happen. If you don't have a brilliant screenplay, then you either have amazing actors who give you the chance to improve whatever is on the page, or an interesting director who has enough faith in the project that they can carry it through and get it somewhere. ~ Ayelet Zurer

The writer's job is to write the screenplay and keep the reader turning pages, not to determine how a scene or sequence should be filmed. You don't have to tell the director and cinematographer and film editor how to do their jobs. Your job is to write the screenplay, to give them enough visual information so they can bring those words on the page into life, in full 'sound and fury,' revealing strong visual and dramatic action, with clarity, insight, and emotion. ~ Syd Field

Pace begins in the screenplay. Cliche or not, we must control rhythm and tempo. It needn't be a symmetrical swelling of activity and shaving of scene lengths, but progressions must be shaped. For if we don't, the film editor will. And if to trim our sloppy work he cuts some of our favorite moments, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We're screenwriters, not refugees from the novel. Cinema is a unique art form. The screenwriter must master the aesthetics of motion pictures and create a screenplay that prepares the way for the artists who follow. ~ Robert McKee

Well, I kind of approach both of them similarly in (that) I always see it as a movie first because that's my background. Cindy Kelley, who has been my writing partner on my novels, she works more on the prose side and the description side of the storytelling because, obviously, there's a lot more of that in a novel than in a screenplay. You only have up to 120 pages in a screenplay. ~ Michael Landon, Jr.

The screenplay is a great document because it makes you have many discussions prior to actually being on the floor. ~ Robert Schwentke

My theory is that everything in your screenplay is there to explore the theme ~ William C. Martell

I'm on a mission
Winning Novel / Screenplay written in Hollywood

Google for updated info ~ Fayton Hollington

So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? ~ Nora Ephron

There is no screenplay-writing recipe that guarantees your cake will rise. ~ Robert McKee

The secret to writing a screenplay is keeping you ass in the chair.
(ASS + CHAIR = PAGES!) ~ Oliver Stone

Most of screenplay writing is deciding which voices you want to listen to and take on board. ~ Abi Morgan

First, there has been a lot of interest in The Drive-in, but, alas, it hasn't actually come to fruition. Maybe soon. Don really got Bubba and I didn't think it could be a film. I thought it was too odd to make it to film. He asked me to do the screenplay, but I declined. I didn't see that it could be a screenplay but he wrote one and proved me wrong. He was always considerate about what I thought about the film and the story's presentation, but in the end, he's the director and he had to make decisions. All good ones. ~ Joe R. Lansdale

A great screenplay makes everybody step up to the bar and deliver. ~ Catherine Hardwicke

With the right tools, you can write anything ... ~ Jeff Lyons

A great screenplay is the most powerful bait in Hollywood. ~ Sissy Spacek

After I sold my screenplay adaptation of 'Rain Fall' to Sony Pictures, I had no more creative involvement. ~ Barry Eisler

Anyone living in Los Angeles who has opposable thumbs is required to write a screenplay. ~ James Scott Bell

They feel guilty for having survived so they pretend the bad things never happened
Exodus (1960) screenplay ~ Dalton Trumbo

I guess the first screenplay of mine that was done was 'Falling in Love' with Robert DeNiro and Meryl Streep. ~ Michael Cristofer

There's cat feces in my Batman costume, and all the lines in my screenplay were snorted by the neighborhood cokehead. Ah, but that's life, no? ~ Jarod Kintz

We mystify the art of moviemaking, but it's not amystical science. You take a good screenplay, put a group togetherand you hammer it out. ~ Bill Paxton

I love making movies and hope to write my own screenplay someday and do some producing and be behind-the-scenes as well. ~ Victoria Justice

I present the nominees, well, not me the Voice of God, for Best Screenplay. ~ Emma Thompson

Try everything; listen to everyone. Follow no one. You are your own story guru! ~ Jeff Lyons

There are a lot of bad screenplays so if you write a good screenplay people are going to respond to it. ~ Quentin Tarantino

Once I started writing the screenplay of 'Bride & Prejudice,' I was convinced Jane Austen was a Punjabi in her previous birth. ~ Gurinder Chadha

The poem has to bear the weight with image, language ... the screenplay with dialogue, plot ... ~ Julianna Baggott

My tombstone would someday read I died keeled over at my computer writing a screenplay or a business plan. ~ Gabriel Campisi

I came into screenwriting from an odd direction, because the first screenplay that I read was and is better as writing than the top one percent of literary novels. ~ William Monahan

If you have a good script, that's what gets you involved. It's harder to write a good screenplay than to find something. ~ Bill Murray

Never take no for an answer. It took me 20 years between the time I wrote my first screenplay and the time I actually got money to direct a movie. ~ Julie Delpy

I don't think screenplay writing is the same as writing - I mean, I think it's blueprinting. ~ Robert Altman

The elegance of a really good screenplay, I admire it. I can't do it. ~ Janet Fitch

Courier 12 is the Type-O blood of fonts - works just as good for a 'N.Y. Times' op-ed as a screenplay or a short story. ~ Andrew Vachss

Directing was easy for me because I was a writer director and did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay. ~ Preston Sturges

Senior faculty nowadays similarly squirm when former 'dunderheads' return to campus to lecture on their prizewinning screenplay or to cut the ribbon for a building funded by their entrepreneurial acumen. How did such dullards metamorphose into geniuses? ~ Mark C. Carnes

I have always had trouble recognizing myself in the features of the intellectual playing his political role according to the screenplay that you are familiar with and whose heritage deserves to be questioned. ~ Jacques Derrida

Writing is my number one passion. I've written two novels. I've written a screenplay. I also write short stories and poetry. ~ Evangeline Lilly

The last person they expected to connect with a screenplay was the comedic, blonde actress with the funny voice. ~ Joey Lauren Adams

CUT!

...

Cut...

...

FUCKING CUT IT!


....

Where is the fucking screenplay? ~ Deyth Banger

Screenplay is the toughest form of writing for me, because you need to be in present tense. You need to be describing things as they occur. ~ Guillermo Del Toro

I'd like to write a screenplay about my grandpa, and I'd like my future grandson to play the part. Talk about a mindfuck! ~ Jarod Kintz

No false promises are made that if you read these pages, you will learn the formula for writing a million-dollar screenplay; in fact, the dirty little secret of screenwriting books is that anyone who promises such formulas is lying. There ~ Peter Hanson

Your life is a screenplay, you must be the author; direct and make it a success. ~ Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

If a Writer births the baby, then a Producer raises the child and sends it off to school."
― Rona Edwards, I Liked It, Didn't Love It: Screenplay Development from the Inside Out ~ Rona Edwards

Have you ever experienced a beauty of soul, an esthetic grace, that was so intense it made you want to cry?
From Central Park Song ( A Screenplay ) ~ Zack Love

I love film and have taken a stab at a screenplay. I love writing dialogue and found it highly enjoyable. ~ Kaui Hart Hemmings

I was originally casted to be in the Superman movie but I read the script and realized that it was mysteriously similar to my screenplay for Zach Braff the Movie. ~ Zach Braff

I just trust the director and never overanalyse the script, screenplay, etc. You are just taking a bet at the end of the day, so confidence, be it on the filmmaker or the script, is all that counts. ~ Ravi Teja

I wrote a screenplay for a 'Sweet Valley High' adaptation, and it's really amazing to me how many women who are my age have responded to the idea and are excited about the movie. ~ Diablo Cody

Nine months after we submitted the original screenplay for 'The Attack,' the studio that was involved pulled out. I've been told that 'you don't write in a French way; you can't make these multicultural films.' ~ Ziad Doueiri

After university, I went into film. I started out making tea, managed a brief stint as an assistant director, then found myself writing a screenplay. In the end, I wrote quite a few - but by January 2006, I wanted out. ~ Nick Harkaway

Brick and Blanket could be the names of two characters in a screenplay full of witty dialogue like:

Brick: Hello!

Blanket: Hi!

Brick: How are you?

Blanket: Good. You?

Brick: Good. ~ Jarod Kintz

I don't write [screenplay character] biographies beforehand. I usually go in knowing some sequences: this is where I want to start, this is where I want to end. ~ John Sayles

Passage of time can be mind-numbing to figure out in a screenplay. It's the easiest thing to do in prose, not just by writing 'four years later', but you can shift time in a sentence or two. ~ Mark Boal

If you're writing a screenplay for a feature, you don't have any involvement with the casting process, the editing process, the set design, the costume design, or any of that stuff. ~ David Benioff

I've written a screenplay that is a series of monologues and songs; they form this sort of human tapestry across time and place. The form is strange, but I find it really fascinating. ~ Patrick Wang

In some ways, a novel isn't as structurally rigorous as a screenplay or a TV show, which have finite real estate. In a novel, you can more deeply illuminate a character's interior and get away with digressions. ~ Howard Gordon

I won't do this movie because I don't believe the love story," she told Selznick. "The heroine is an intellectual woman, and an intellectual woman simply can't fall in love so deeply. ~ Ingrid Bergman

I've always equated the writing process with editing, sort of like when I get through editing the movie, that's like my last draft of the screenplay. ~ Quentin Tarantino

The brain needs to have a story; it needs to have a logical screenplay telling where we're coming from and what we're going to. ~ Miguel Nicolelis

When you're writing a screenplay every scene needs to change from positive to negative, or negative to positive, and constantly trying to change the values of the movie. ~ Sam De Jong

The way you write a screenplay is that you close your eyes and run the movie in your head and then you write it down. ~ Salman Rushdie

I like working with south Indian directors because they are very disciplined. They visualize their entire story and screenplay in their heads even before they start shooting, which I respect. They finish their work on time. Being a disciplinarian myself, this suits my style. ~ Akshay Kumar

I did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay. It was probably harder for a regular director. He probably had to read the script the night before shooting started. ~ Preston Sturges