Film Making Quotes & Sayings

I never want to make a film. I don't wake up in the morning going, 'Ooh, I'd really love to be on set making a film today'. I'm aware that other contemporary film directors perceive film-making as what they do, as what they have to do. But I would hope that I am more catholic in my tastes. — Stephen Daldry

Movie distribution may very well have migrated fully to digital form by then, making a huge dent in the need to print film and physically distribute content. — Vint Cerf

I want to go wherever there's great work. I'm a huge fan of film primarily. But you can get a great TV show and get attached to it. Making a great film is forever, though, so I always want to be part of film. It's my first love. — Aml Ameen

Film-makers are always going to be interested in making movies that plug into society around them. That's what a vibrant, artistically alert community should be doing. After all, it would be sad if we only made films about alien robots. — Mark Boal

You really have to soak up the culture of the people to get it right. If you're making a fiction film, it's entertainment, but you want it to be as real as possible. — Robert Duvall

I have never seen a film being as influenced by the incidents during its making as Highway. The adventures of our north Indian road journey has many stories to tell — Imtiaz Ali

When making a film, I'm never concerned about whether the theme is new or whether it's been done before in cinema or not. I'm led to make films if there's a theme that interests me or I experience something in my own life that confronts me with something that I want to deal with. — Michael Haneke

Making your first feature film is actually impossible. — Yahoo Serious

Once in a while a good opportunity would come along, like the first 'Playhouse 90 ever to air - working in television afforded me my best opportunities. The (film) industry was going through such turmoil at the time - studios didn't know where to go anymore, they were falling apart, television was there. They didn't know what kind of films people wanted. The European films were making a huge impact because those films wanted real people in real situations. — Tab Hunter

What NYU tried to teach had no relation whatsoever with the reality of what making a film is like. You cannot teach someone aesthetics. What you can do is say, "If you were in this situation and this is the kind of story you wanted to tell, here are a couple of ways you could try to make things work." But they didn't really do that. I did my three years there, and I have said at times that besides my childhood, going to NYU was the single most destructive experience of my life. It took me eight years to recover.
~Tom Dicillo — Nicholas Jarecki

The technology available for film-making now is incredible, but I am a big believer that it's all in the story. — Robert Redford

It's good that they've seen it, but how can I be satisfied after working for two years making a film which I hope will make a difference, when the government sees the film and does nothing about it? — Mathieu Kassovitz

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

At least I want to be making films that are somehow born out of me that are stories I want to tell. The challenge is figuring out how to do it where you can make them personal, yet still deliver to an audience a film experience that is satisfying and emotional, and that's what I'm trying to do. — Gavin O'Connor

It was very hard to make 'Funny Face' in Paris because making movies is difficult and making a movie in a city that was glorious, that was unique and surprising, to get it, to put it on film you have to make choices and reject a lot of things so you're always wondering: 'Am I doing it right?' — Stanley Donen

I like making films because I like to go into another world. I like to get lost into another world. — David Lynch

Making a film or doing a play are completely different experiences and entirely fulfilling, but completely unique. I also think one complements the other. People often say that theater is about flexing your muscles, and is actually real acting, whereas I sort of disagree. — Eddie Redmayne

One of the things I love about the theater is that no one can tell you to stop. Once you're onstage, it's three hours, and whether you're completely off or you're just horrendous, you've got to find a way to leave an impression. There's not that terrible thing that you get when you're making a movie, where you get in your car at the end of the day knowing that something you're not proud of was immortalized on film, and you can't fix it because they won't reshoot it. — Carey Mulligan

Getting the audience to cry for the Terminator at the end of T2, for me that was the whole purpose of making that film. If you can get the audience to feel emotion for a character that in the previous film you despised utterly and were terrified by, then that's a cinematic arc. — James Cameron

I want to confess. I thought that her story was comprised of scenes. I thought the tragedy could be glamorous and her grief could be undone by a sunnier future. I thought we could pinpoint dramatic events on a time line and call it a life.
But I was wrong. — Nina LaCour

For me, animated film is about magic. This is how magic becomes part of daily life, invading daily life.... Magic enters into a quite ordinary contact with mundane things ... (making) reality seem doubtful. — Jan Svankmajer

I'm able to lead my life as well as make a film. My wife and my friends and people around me know that I do tend to distance myself a little bit during the making of a film, but I have to, it's a natural part of the process for me because you are indulging in the headspace of somebody else, you are investing in the psychology of somebody else and you are becoming somebody else, and so there isn't enough room for you and that somebody else. — Guy Pearce

I did The Newton Boys and during the whole process of making the film, I may have spent a week in Los Angeles. — Richard Linklater

The set of '12 Years a Slave' was an extremely joyous one! We all recognized that we were making a powerful, necessary and beautiful film, and we weren't about doing it without that sense of responsibility, and we recognized that we needed each other to tell this story. We also knew we needed to hold each other up as we told the story. — Lupita Nyong'o

I look at American movies, the big muscles, and try to apply that to Chinese film-making. — Ang Lee

Miley is always on, she's always funny, she's always writing songs, she's always making music. The parallel of the film is like Miley says, going back to her home, going back to her roots. Getting back to Tennessee was art imitating life imitating art. — Billy Ray Cyrus

The biggest challenge was trying to convey the story of the making of a film that isn't finished yet - and which won't be finished until the third film, The Return of the King, reaches our cinemas towards the end of 2003! — Brian Sibley

When I pick a role, one of the things that I aspire to is that somebody's parent will come up to me after the film has come out and say, "My daughter idealizes that character. You're her hero." That's what I aim for. We're in the business of making heroes. — Evangeline Lilly

Making movies has not only been an incredibly collaborative process but there's three big parts: pre-production, shooting itself and then post-production, which leads into marketing. And if you're passionate about the movie and you believe in it, and it would make sense that you are having done it, then you want to get out and promote it. It makes it a lot easier when the film is good and people are enjoying it. — Dwayne Johnson

In fiction film, there are so many trappings - money, glory, champagne and supermodels - that attract the wolves. But in documentary film, there's none of that, so the wolves stay away. The only people who make docs are people who are curious about other people and just like making documentaries. — Marshall Curry

The scripts for Marco Polo are absolutely, positively fantastic. The challenge of making that show in China has proved to be as formidable as we feared. It's not like making a movie in China where, once you load up and you leave, you're gone. We have to be able to come back and capture something that's going to feel like a major feature film, on a television budget, and do it, hopefully season after season, so we are taking more time than the producers thought. — Chris Albrecht

In a film called 'Senna,' the clue is in the title, and we have a Brazilian badge on our sleeve as we were making it. We were making it from Senna's point of view, with Senna narrating it. — Asif Kapadia

Human beings are really attuned to their senses. When you work in film, you are working with the visual and audio senses. An understanding of tactile and other components that go into the creation of those objects are important to making them look real on screen, like a plasma of energy. — John Dykstra

I didn't want to go down the route of spending a year of my life making a movie that would never be seen. I may as well go down a route making a film that a lot of people will see, which is the whole idea behind cinema. — Ridley Scott

If a handful of people look at the making of the film and realize, "Oh, my god!" It was so complicated. It was like doing quantum physics calculations every day while you're telling a joke. It was so insane! So, they can feel my pain. — Rob Letterman

I don't really see the point in making a film unless you can think of a good reason to do it. — Ben Barnes

Bad films gave me the courage to try making a movie — Stanley Kubrick

You finish a film not in the editing, but in the conversations that audiences have with themselves - and in that sense, every viewer is making a slightly different film. And that's wonderful. — Joshua Oppenheimer

Making a film is like going down a mine-once you've started you bid a metaphoricalgoodbye to the daylight and the outside world for the duration. — John Schlesinger

They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25, and it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film. — Christopher Tolkien

I want to have the illegitimate child of independent film making and the budget to make it. That's my aspiration. — Duncan Jones

I don't believe in putting in music as a band aid to get you over some rough parts or bad film making. If it's there it's got to add to it or take it to another level. — Quentin Tarantino

If you're someone who's making film or TV or music, or any kind of art form now, there's a billion outlets and they all have an opinion. — Andy Samberg

What is the point of making the film if the man doesn't marry the girl?. — Yash Chopra

I feel like a lot of my past career was going to film school, making a lot of different kinds of movies. I made a bunch of comedies, I made one drama and I made a couple musicals. — Adam Shankman

There's no truth in acting, it's all a trick, because you go on stage in front of sets, you're on film - it's all a trick. I'm making it sound very - I really am demystifying it, but what I try to do, what I do, and I hope effectively, is to create a reality as if it is happening now, that you're fishing for words out of the air. — Anthony Hopkins

In music, recording, writing, photography, design, film-making and any other creative endeavour, it may be true that anyone can do it, but it is not quite as true as punk sometimes seemed to suggest that anyone can do it in a way that is appreciated by others. The key point is that, without determination and application, talent and ideas are just unrealised potential. That lesson-there for anyone who wishes to learn it-is perhaps punk's , and the Clash's, greatest legacy. — Marcus Gray

The first day I start shooting, I start having a recurring nightmare that every single night that I am lying in bed, and there is a film crew surrounding the bed, waiting for me to tell them what to do, and I don't quite know what movie I am supposed to be making. — Peter Jackson

My background is sociology. Combined with my graphic approach, if I could do some film projects, I think I'd be very good at making documentaries eventually, but people don't think of me for that, of course. But dialogue is something I know I can be good at. — David Carson

Just as making an omelette & breaking eggs you can't make a horror film without breaking a few heads! — Kensington Gore

I'm lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That's an enormous privilege. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something. — Michael Haneke

When you're making a film, there are so many people involved that you get opinions and notes from people and you don't even know who they are. I find that quite difficult and it wears you down. — Nick Cave

You're making a movie, not a documentary. If you made a film like the historians would like you to make, you're not going to go and see it. I'd rather see paint dry. — Dougray Scott

It's a funny thing with the inspiration thing. There's always loads of music around that I absolutely love and films going back to when I started making film music in the mid-80's. — Steven Price

See, the first thing about actors is, you're just trying to get a job; and you audition and audition and you finally get them. And you still consider yourself an auditioning actor. I auditioned for One Fine Day, I wasn't offered that. So you're still in that 'Hey, I'm just trying to get a job' thing. Then, you get to the point where, if you decide to do it, then they'll make the film. That's a different kind of responsibility, and it usually takes a couple of films to catch up. And then you have to actually pay attention to the kind of films that you're making. — George Clooney

You have to understand that you are not making the film for yourself; you're making it for the audience. If I am asking my audiences to buy tickets, I owe them the worth of their money, and I owe them entertainment. — Abhishek Bachchan

I dropped out of school at 17 and joined the Irish band The Frames, getting my first glimpse into the world of professional film making while shooting of a number of rock videos. — John Carney

When I said that something was going to cost a certain amount of money, I actually knew what I was talking about. The biggest problem that we were having on the financing front was people with lots of money saying "you need more money to make this film [Moon]," and us saying "no this is the first feature film we want to do it at a budget where we sort of prove ourselves at the starting end of making feature films; we can do this for $5 million." That is where the convincing part between me and Stuart came, we had to convince people with money that we could do it for that budget. — Duncan Jones

In America, instead of making the audience come to the film, the idea seems to be for you to go to the audience. They come up with the demographics for the film and then the film is made and sold strictly to that audience. — Clint Eastwood

Filmmaking is not the work of the weak-minded. It may not be rocket science, but it requires ten times more strength of the mind than that. — Abhijit Naskar

You go to the cinema and you realize you're watching the third act. There is no first or second act. There is this massive film-making where you spend this incredible amount of money and play right to the demographic. You can tell how much money the film is going to make by how it does on the first weekend. The whole culture is in the crap house. It's not just true in the movies, it's also true in the theater. — Dustin Hoffman

Unlike an envied and admirable few, I separate my friends and almost never dare mingle one group with another. When I do, it is usually a social disaster, like mixing drinks. I love good beer and I love good wine, but you cannot drink both on the same evening without suffering. I love the friends with whom I play or once daily played snooker and tooted quantities of high-grade pulverized Andean flake; I love the friends with whom I dine at preposterously expensive restaurants; I love the friends with whom I'm film-making or mincing on the stage. I love and value them all equally and don't think of them as stratified or in tiers, one group in some way higher or more important than the rest, but the thought of introducing them to each other makes me shiver and shudder with cringing embarrassment. — Stephen Fry

Well, we are not doing that film actually. At least I am not at the moment, but we are making an effort to get it done; I don't know whether we'll get the financing for it. The old story we had it, it fell out of place and this and that. — Harvey Keitel

Making a film, it uses a certain ... 'pretend-muscle,' I don't know what you want to call it. It exhausts something in me, I find. It has to be really something to get me interested. — Jeff Bridges

My heart is in independent film-making. For me, it's where the fun, gritty storytelling is being told. — Aaron Paul

Without art, a film is pure wastage of time and resources. — Abhijit Naskar

My film school is making movies. But, I do think that being an actor has served me immensely, as both a writer and director, in terms of knowing what is playable and what will be fun to play, for actors, and also how to communicate to actors on set, and not screw them up and get them in their head. — Josh Radnor

If you're strutting around Beverly Hills and hitting up these big industry parties every night when you're not making movies, then it's going to eventually consume you. But for me, I live most of my life in Boston. I do things no different from the way my buddies back home do them, except when I go to work, I go to a film set. — Chris Evans

There's a great freedom you get when you're making TV that you don't get when you're doing film. — Kieran Bew

When I'm actually making a film and trying to find solutions, I like to watch making-of documentaries about huge films, like 'Gladiator.' That couldn't be more apart from what I'm doing, but you see Ridley Scott facing huge problems and fixing them. — Philippe Falardeau

When you're making a film, you become incredibly close. It's not like you're filing away papers all day. You're creating with human emotions, so you do become very connected, so it is familial and romantic. — Thora Birch

There's always been this hocus-pocus or magical, mystical thing associated with the making of film that sort of psyches people out and makes them think that this cannot be done; that this is a craft that cannot be learned. — Spike Lee

Film is more of novelty, because I've done so much theater over many years. I'm in love with making movies. Also, I find it easier to remember three minutes of dialogue than three hours. — Woody Allen

See, a painting is much cheaper than making a film. And photography is, you know, way cheap. So if I get an idea for a film, there are many ways to get it together and go realise that film. There's really nothing to be afraid of. — David Lynch

For me the journey of making a film is a journey of discovery as to what that film is. I mean what I do is what other artists do, painters, novelists, people that make music, poets, sculptors, you name it. It's about starting out and working with the material and discovering through making, working with the material the artifact. — Mike Leigh

A film goes through so many hands, that by the time it's done, it might not resemble what you thought you were making. — Ryan Phillippe

I need as much of the business of making a film to be in my own workspace. It really ought to be a bit more like doing a novel, alone, at first. I'm feeling my way. — William Monahan

When I talk to film students, I always say, 'Buy the DVDs and listen to the commentaries, look at the making of, look at the behind-the-scenes,' because that's such a great learning tool. — Catherine Hardwicke

I think when portraying someone that does exist in real life, there's an amount of respect and you want to do them justice. I don't really care what anybody says out there about what I did in the film; I care what these guys thought about what I did. If I'm making them happy, then I know I'm on the right track. — Joe Manganiello

Making films is too big an undertaking to be doing it on a whim, so you're waiting all the time, until you finally meet the person who gets it. — Crispian Mills

My retirement is both voluntary and involuntary. One reason, and this is voluntary, is the impact of television. All old movies are turning up on television, and frankly, making pictures doesn't interest me anymore. Another reason is that the film industry is in a declining state. — Randolph Scott

Being horrible in a big film is a quicker nosedive than doing an obscure film and making no money. — Renee Zellweger

Pretty early on in making the first movie I realized that this is what I wanted to do. I felt like by that time I just found my niche, like this is what I was supposed to be doing. So I completely submerged myself into the world of watching movies, making my own movies, buying video cameras and lights. When I wasn't making a movie, I was making my own movies. When I wasn't making movies, I was watching movies. I was going back and studying film and looking back at guys that were perceived as great guys that I can identify with. It just became my life. — Mark Wahlberg

There's a whole gamut of things to do with film music that don't apply when you're making a record or if you're writing a concert piece or something. — Henry Jackman

Making a film, I've learned, can be an exhausting process, due to the need for backing, distribution, etc. — Anne Rice

One thing I love about making an ensemble film is that you can have ten people come away from it with ten different messages. — Morris Chestnut

Well,the fun part of being a writer is that it's like making a wonderful film, with no limit on my budget. I can design the sets, the costume, the lightings, I write the script, and then I get to perform all the roles as I step into each character's skin, zip up, and adopt that point of view. So, to me, they are all compelling and fascinating. — Robin Hobb

To the documentary director the appearance of things and people is only superficial. It is the meaning behind the thing and the significance underlying the person that occupy his attention ... Documentary approach to cinema differs from that of story-film not in its disregard for craftsman-ship, but in the purpose to which that craftsmanship is put. Documentary is a trade just as carpentry or pot-making. The pot-maker makes pots, and the documentarian documentaries. — Paul Rotha

I dropped out of college and ended up making this feature film I wrote when I was 19 with some friends. It was terrible. — Jason Woliner

I did a film called 'Floating' early on that had a scene which was similar to a real-life situation I was in at the time. It involved me having a conversation with my father, who was dying. It was close to home and it made me realise acting wasn't just making faces for the cameras, it was a real art form. — Norman Reedus

I think that, back in the day, there used to be a lot of horror films that kind of had a checklist of what went into making the 'perfect horror film', and I think now people are raising the bar in the industry, as far as the types of horror films that are being made. — Elisha Cuthbert

I think I did fifteen long features and fifteen documentaries, or something like this, which is very little when you think of people making a film every year. Some people have done fifty or sixty films. — Agnes Varda

Usually in France we prefer to say bad things about the Nouvelle Vague, but I'm always impressed with its freedom and the fact of not making a film to give your opinion but just as a piece of art, which to me means the Nouvelle Vague. — Arnaud Desplechin

I think what's fun of making a Transformers movie is that it gets to be all of the above. I think, thematically, this movie is ... because of the third movie, you can ask questions in this movie you couldn't ask in the previous films. Like I was referring to the fact that they were abandoned by humans in the previous film; their attitude is different, so we've been able to tackle different themes. — Lorenzo Di Bonaventura

I'm working in a form of cinema that can be described, and has been described, as a diaristic form of cinema. In other words, with material from my own life. I walk through life with my camera, and occasionally I film. I never think about scripts, never think about films, making films. — Jonas Mekas

It's not hard to understand why an accomplished director like Gus Van Sant (whose most recent success, Good Will Hunting , gave him mainstream clout) would be interested in making this film. The lure of an exact remake presents a tremendous challenge. Unfortunately, it was undoubtedly a lot more stimulating for Van Sant and his crew to make Psycho than it is for an audience to watch it. [C]uriosity is going to be one of the primary reasons why people pay money to see this movie; boredom will be the predominant result. — James Berardinelli

The most frustrating things is when you read something that has so much potential, but there are other little red flags where you think, I don't know that I would see eye-to-eye with the people making this film. And that is the worst environment to enter, and absolutely not worth the risk. — Anna Kendrick

What I love about the way they both [Paul Thomas Anderson and Joaquin Phoenix] work is that all of the monkey business is on film. There's no monkey business outside of the monkey business of making the movie. There's no ego bullshit, there's no wasted energy. It's all directed at the story and that's rare. — Katherine Waterston

I think making a good film shot is joyful. — William Shatner

I love independent film making. So much real love and passion go into them and you can feel it while you watch. As for my career, I don't want to be famous. I just want to be a part of as many beautiful, crazy, unique films as possible. — Alicia Sixtos