Quotes & Sayings About Filmmakers

Other filmmakers make their movies and put them out and that's that. For me, for some odd reason, it goes deeper than that. — Kevin Smith

For young filmmakers, Saw is a perfect film. It doesn't cost the GNP of almost every country of the world. — Donnie Wahlberg

As for major obstacles keeping young Latinos from becoming filmmakers, I think our communities are still coming into their identities as storytellers. It's such an important identity to reclaim - it's how our ancestors kept our cultures alive. But a long history of silencing, invisibility, and marginalization has kept generations of Latinos from believing in themselves, from seeing themselves as agents of their own lives. I think there needs to be a focus on this aspect to help cultivate young Latinas to see themselves as cultural producers and defenders. — Aurora Guerrero

Before, I just don't think we knew how much music was out there; now with MySpace, it's really opened it up. Filmmakers have so much more choice. — Allison Anders

I find that it's a very odd thing to think of competition when you're talking about what I still think of as art. I don't think of competing with actors or filmmakers at all. You do compete, in a way, at the box office, but we're far enough apart when both films are coming out that I'm not concerned with that either. — George Clooney

I love talking about acting. I'm just such a fan of actors and filmmakers, and I try to choose roles where I get to talk to great actors about acting and learn. — Jessica Chastain

Along the way, female filmmakers will have the feeling that they're not good enough. And that's really just a result of being "otherized" from the moment they're born. Keep an eye out for all those insecurities, and even expect them. Borrow white male privilege and just move through the world as if it was created for you. You have to kind of talk yourself into an imaginary space where the world is on your side and expects you to speak and wants you to speak. You have to create that space for yourself over and over again. Every hour sometimes. — Jill Soloway

Without the benefit of Google, ask anybody to name more than five female filmmakers that have made more than three films. It's shockingly hard. — Leslye Headland

I like meeting directors. It can be helpful because sometimes when you meet filmmakers you find out if you like them and if they like you, and that is important in terms of considering a role. Choosing a role is all about whether I relate to the role and the story really. That's the criteria. — Keanu Reeves

I never acted in anything I've directed but I have produced a number of films and I have acted in some of the movies I've produced. Usually with first time filmmakers and pushing a move forward I have played a small role but never the lead. — Forest Whitaker

The most successful filmmakers are not always the most knowledgeable ones. They are the ones who put action to what they learnt. They do, not talk about doing. — Elliot Grove

There is no filmmaking legislation because distributors are not interested in sharing their money with the film industry - for instance, by giving a percentage of ticket sales back to filmmakers. — Andrzej Wajda

I have a team, the same team of filmmakers I worked with on Pi and Requiem. Which is my cameraman, and my composer, and my producer. We've all worked together for a number of films. — Darren Aronofsky

Roger Ebert was such a champion of underrepresented filmmakers. He was a very big deal to me. It shows the power of critics. People who write about film, like you, can really affect the confidence of a young filmmaker. He did that for me, so it was such a pleasure to have an opportunity to talk about Roger in the movie. — Ava DuVernay

This is what I always tell my filmmakers-you have to do tons of research, because you don't know where the inspiration is going come from. — John Lasseter

Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all. — Stanley Kubrick

Now there's a whole generation of filmmakers who grew up making their own films with video cameras, and have dined entirely on a diet of popular culture. It's been reflected in a lot of their work. It's self-reflective, it's quite knowing, but it's very literate. — Simon Pegg

I know many filmmakers, and shooting in IMAX is challenging. Filmmakers love the vividness and power of those big images. — Nina Jacobson

Many filmmakers pretend that they never see anything, which has always seemed odd to me. — Jacques Rivette

It's more like can I build a group of characters and can I tell some universal truths that feel real and aren't formulaic in the spirit of filmmakers gone by who've told American stories that were personal and universal as well. — Cameron Crowe

Most filmmakers can't afford to try something out that doesn't work. — Francis Ford Coppola

When I was in New York I heard many people saying that the independent film industry was in big trouble. I was reflecting on this when I came home. Realizing that ever since I started filmmaking, people have being saying that. But somehow it keeps going. Filmmakers keep going. We need stories to make sense of the world and some people like me are driven to tell them. I have faith this will always be possible. — Andrea Arnold

There are committed Indonesian filmmakers who are committed supporters of 'The Act Of Killing.' — Joshua Oppenheimer

When I do encounter young women or aspiring filmmakers who tell me that I've inspired them or that my work means something to them, that's amazing. That's really exciting! — Diablo Cody

If there's anything that I've always said about myself is that to me, it's much more important for me to get to work with filmmakers that I've grown up loving and admiring. — Zoe Saldana

I have an idea about building almost like a studio for some of the best Tropfest filmmakers, so they can come together and support and be given space and resources they need to tell great stories year around, so it's not just about the festivals. You know, the sky's the limit with this thing, and I'm still making it up as I go along. — John Polson

If we have anything to offer, as filmmakers and as TV makers now, it's this ability to feel as close to a documentary as you can get in a narrative form. — Mark Duplass

There was a time when emigration from Cuba was a definitive separation. There were no visits. In the '80s, '90s, it was incredibly difficult. I'm not the only one interested in this as a filmmaker - other Cuban filmmakers have dealt with it, too, because it's such a part of our reality. — Fernando Perez

If you aim for parody right off the bat and it misses, no offense to the filmmakers, but it is Meet the Spartans. — Adam McKay

I get to work with incredibly talented young filmmakers and students, and their attitudes and relationship with film is still so pure. That re-inspires me and reminds me why I got into it and what I love about film, and allows me a little reprieve from the business side of it. And it rekindles my love of film. — James Franco

I think for female filmmakers a big issue is making their second and third films. — Ava DuVernay

Music is a very, very powerful tool that filmmakers use to sway people into emotions that they intend you to feel. — James Ransone

I'm actually a huge fan of digital as well. I appreciate how that technology opens the doors for filmmakers who never had access to that level of quality before. However, I do think film itself sets the standard for quality. You can talk about range, light, sensitive, resolution
there's something about film that is undeniably beautiful, undeniably organic and natural and real. — J.J. Abrams

You grow up watching certain films or admiring certain filmmakers, and to write a love letter to one and have them validate it, it's extraordinary. — Simon Pegg

When my film went to the Venice Film Festival and won the best script writing, the jury [prize], it didn't go to my head. I know how many black filmmakers that I am operating with whose name will never be mentioned. But I'm part of them in that silent existence. — Haile Gerima

One hopeful sign that the filmmakers can learn and grow is that the sequel does not contain a single pie, if you know what I mean. — Roger Ebert

I probably live in the best province for independent filmmakers. Manitoba has a sort of thieving-magpie approach, trying to lift productions from other provinces as well as from other countries. It makes it very hard for me to leave. — Guy Maddin

When you take that to the next level of guiding a group of filmmakers to actually depict him, it's even more challenging. The one that that I think everybody involved believes is that we won't move forward with this until we believe it's right. There's no deadline that a movie has to be made by. We have to believe that we have served the responsibility, however long it takes us to get to that point. — Christopher Meledandri

It didn't get into Sundance although I showed a rough cut which is a mistake to all filmmakers out there. — Donal Logue

When I was a young man, my friends and I and all of us in New York were very influenced by French cinema. French cinema played an enormous influence on those of us who wanted to be filmmakers. — Woody Allen

As an independent filmmaker, the biggest challenge is finding the money. Whenever you have interest in a film project you need to find investors who are real. I think most independent filmmakers would echo that sentiment. — Harrison Smith

We are filmmakers, and we are specifically trying to entertain people. — Mads Mikkelsen

Female directors really do need to support each other. Too many times I've been led to believe that my direct competition was other women, as if there can be only a handful of successful female filmmakers a year. That conversation, that perception, needs to change. Women are the people who have helped me make films I love, and I want to be that kind of strength to other women. — Jennifer Phang

I grew up watching American movies. My favorite movies have always been American, since as long as I can remember. I always had this huge respect for American filmmakers and American actors. — Noomi Rapace

Who could be more desperate than filmmakers? — Steven Shainberg

I don't like every other musician's work. The same way that filmmakers don't like every other filmmakers' work. Just because I'm a feminist doesn't mean I'm gonna say that I like every other woman's work, or that I appreciate another statement that another woman publicly made. — Kathleen Hanna

I was very inspired by Les Blank's film 'Burden of Dreams.' I think what's unique about his film and the two I've made is that they're close examinations of filmmakers and how their own emotional experiences reflect in the material they're rendering, and vice versa - how that material sometimes colors their own lives. — George Hickenlooper

I don't think that writers or painters or filmmakers function because they have something they particularly want to say. They have something that they feel. And they like the art form; they like words, or the smell of paint, or celluloid and photographic images and working with actors. I don't think that any genuine artist has ever been oriented by some didactic point of view, even if he thought he was. — Stanley Kubrick

It is in fact an orderly community. The green plants are food for the plant eaters, which are food for the predators, and some of those predators are food for still other predators. And what's left over is food for the scavengers, who return to the earth nutrients needed by the green plants. It's a system that has worked magnificently for billions of years. Filmmakers understandably love footage of gore and battle, but any naturalist will tell you that the species are not in any sense at war with one another. The gazelle and lion are enemies only in the minds of the Takers. The lion that comes across a herd of gazelles doesn't massacre them as an enemy would. It kills one, not to satisfy its hatred of gazelles but to satisfy its hunger, and once it has made its kill the gazelles are perfectly content to go on grazing with the lion in the midst. — Daniel Quinn

You want somebody who's capable of being diverse in the characters they play, and you want a big name that's going to bring attention to the filmmakers and to the project. — Dana Brunetti

A lot of filmmakers from my generation were lucky enough to have their work more or less perpetuated by people who saw them originally on TV and on HBO and certainly on home video. — Joe Dante

It amazes me that filmmakers will still film, and audiences will still watch, relationships so bankrupt of human feeling that the characters could be reading dialogue written by a computer. — Roger Ebert

Careers are built on relationships. Even if it's a bad movie, even if I know it's a bad movie, even if it's a team of filmmakers that I know are going to be difficult, that I know are going to really make me work extra hard, it's fundamentally the same process. — Christophe Beck

I don't want to be one of these filmmakers that hit you over the head with my agenda or my opinion. I just want to take you down the 50-yard line and let you form your own opinion of what the controversy [of a movie] is about. — Ric Roman Waugh

I think the thing about film is, as it gets proved by a lot of young filmmakers now, that the medium will just go on reinventing itself, and so you just hope to be a part of that and not a part of some kind of endless regurgitation or 'Here I am doing what you know I do' kind of thing. — Alan Rickman

Young filmmakers are supposed to be the young turks that advance the current state of filmmaking ideas. — Reginald Hudlin

I think filmmakers in general are, as the tools become more and more advanced, you're able to tell stories in a way that I think is more realistic. The technology just wasn't there up until pretty recently, and it takes a bit of time for the normal artistic way of approaching something to become a mainstream thing. — Neill Blomkamp

I want to work with great filmmakers and great actors and get better as an actor. — Bradley Cooper

I'm more influenced by novelists than I am by filmmakers. — Billy Bob Thornton

Nowadays filmmakers tend to recycle the same cliches over and over again. — Tom Hooper

We're not encouraging idols other than on the TV show, you know and that's the wrong way to do it. If we had become famous from a contest show we'd be embarrassed in my generation. But if that's the benchmark then I thought well young people who want to be filmmakers, or musicians, or whatever are screwed. But maybe they're not because what they're doing is they're creating their own thing. — Billy Bob Thornton

I can't impress people with the pedigree of obscure French filmmakers that got me into film. It was Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg. I really thought I wanted to make dumb action movies. — Doug Liman

We are here predominantly to support independent filmmakers and their needs. We are also here to assist people actually in their production, non-commercial people in their production. — Ann Macbeth

I look at some of my work and say, "Oh, that's where I can be better." I want to continue to grow and do things that do scare me. I want to work with filmmakers who will help me go deeper in my work. — Hilary Swank

I just want to work with good filmmakers and do good projects that mean something to me and play interesting characters. That's really it. — Dylan O'Brien

Being snarky and smug doesn't equate to providing insight, and there's more than one occasion when the filmmakers lose sight of this in their zeal to spread the Gospel According to Maher. — James Berardinelli

There's always been a struggle with filmmakers between art and industry, and you have to find a balance. — Michel Hazanavicius

Also, to get to work with serious filmmakers on this kind of a movie, has elevated these movies. We were so lucky, as actors, that the crew of directors that we've gotten to work with are totally really super high-end filmmakers. But, Bill Condon had a vision and it was so specific. He's really passionate. I think he's taken the story to another level. — Elizabeth Reaser

In 1962, we created the Filmmakers' Co-Op because nobody wanted to distribute our films. If we had the Internet in those days, we wouldn't have needed the Co-Op. — Jonas Mekas

In Europe, there are many filmmakers working in the same territory: immigration, and the things that are most disruptive to European life today. That's not a judgment. I think it's good that cinema looks at such things. — Jean-Pierre Dardenne

"Bolshoi Babylon" is the work of filmmakers Mark Franchetti and Nicholas Read. Franchetti has been a Moscow-based journalist for 18 years. He won a British Press Award for his coverage of the 2002 Moscow theater siege in which 130 hostages were killed. He's covered Russian politics and the war in Ukraine. — Elizabeth Blair Lee

It's so tough to get movies made in Ireland anymore. A whole generation of Irish filmmakers doesn't have the resources to get a movie made. — Ciaran Hinds

Unlike with any other art form, filmmakers have this unique web of festivals. There are hundreds. It is a democratic system in which you submit films, and if they are good enough, they play. The only barrier to entry is the submission fee. — Jason Reitman

Most filmmakers' entire body of knowledge is of other movies. When they describe things, they describe them in relation to other movies. That's why we have so many cyclical movies that look like other movies. But I'm not cynical. I even go to some of those movies. — John Malkovich

I've been encouraging documentary filmmakers to use more and more humor, and they're loath to do that because they think if it's a documentary it has to be deadly serious - it has to be like medicine that you're supposed to take. And I think it's what keeps the mass audience from going to documentaries. — Michael Moore

I'm transitioning to television and film, but ultimately, I want to have a stronger presence on the web and be able to curate the content that I want to see. To bring attention to other filmmakers and writers. — Issa Rae

When I did 'E.T.,' it sort of solidified the only family I know are these film crews. These gypsies. These filmmakers. That was the solidification and the clicking revelations of 'This is what I want to do with my life and this is where I'm going to survive.' — Drew Barrymore

Up to a few years ago nearly all the literature about Oceania was written by papalagi and other outsiders. Our islands were and still are a goldmine for romantic novelists and filmmakers, bar-room journalists and semi-literate tourists, sociologists and Ph.D. students, remittance men and sailing evangelists, UNO experts, and colonial administrators and their well-groomed spouses. Much of this literature ranges from the hilariously romantic through the pseudo-scholarly to the infuriatingly racist; from the noble savage literary school through Margaret Mead and all her comings of age, Somerset Maugham's puritan missionaries/drunks/and saintly whores and James Michener's rascals and golden people, to the stereotyped childlike pagan who needs to be steered to the Light. — Albert Wendt

Audiences crave something they've never seen before. That's what they want. They want to be dazzled. They want to go in either to have their expectations blown out of the water, or have no expectations and are dazzled by the decisions that we [filmmakers] made. — Tom Hanks

It's said that if two documentary filmmakers meet they talk about the world, if two fiction filmmakers meet they talk about the million that they don't have to make their film. — Pirjo Honkasalo

I just want to keep doing things completely different from the other. I just want to keep working with great people, great filmmakers and great actors and just building on that experience. — Christopher Egan

Post-war filmmakers gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary and Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary. — Michael Moore

Pretty much all films I've seen that depict the life of Christ end with the Crucifixion, almost like the filmmakers don't know what to do after. — Joseph Fiennes

Working with HBO was an opportunity to experience creative freedom and 'long-form development' that filmmakers didn't have a chance to do before the emergence of shows like 'The Sopranos.' — Martin Scorsese

There are a lot of filmmakers I love whose work doesn't inspire mine at all. For example: Quentin Tarantino. From his films you can see that he has a wicked sense of humour, and I love that! — Chika Anadu

America is a magical place, and I think my job, or the job of a lot of us European filmmakers is to just hold up America to Americans and present it to you in a new way. All I wanted to do is in a funny way say, "Look at your country. It's magnificent." — Hans Zimmer

Early 1900s Hollywood was full of farmers battling to hold onto their land against a new influx of filmmakers who dug Hollywood's reliable weather and diverse landscape. — Shawn Amos

Indian cinema is no more limited to audiences in India. We have viewers all around the world, and hence, understanding the global perspective is a must. Cinema Beyond Boundaries would get the viewers and the filmmakers together and would help us in serving them with good quality cinema. — Madhur Bhandarkar

All I want is the same opportunities as the filmmakers I grew up admiring. But you know, I've had lots of amazing opportunities to do the movies I wanted to do. If I could write my future, I'd want to keep making character-based films that can make use of my voice as a filmmaker. — Tim Story

I definitely think for up and coming filmmakers, people graduating from film school, people that want to do their own movies, horror movies are a great way to go. — Jonathan Levine

I like the days when all the filmmakers had was a film roll, a camera and a gangster. The Mack Sennett comedies were all like that. They'd create little teams to go out and shoot films. — Michel Gondry

What I would say to filmmakers, if I may be so bold or so arrogant, is to draw inspiration from other filmmakers, but go to the place in your own gut where everything is nothing. That's a very Zen thing to say, but that place of nothing is where real creativity comes out of. — Lawrence Bender

It's not my style to either wear minimum clothes, to strip, or to even be comfortable with a sex-symbol label. I just want to do good work instead of sporting such meaningless tags. Sex sells, but to a small extent, not always. And this is what filmmakers have to accept. — Katrina Kaif

Movies are not novels, and that's why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can't be done. — Paul Auster

I think independent filmmakers, documentary filmmakers - they are journalists. — Robert Redford

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

When everything is added up, the frequent blows weighted against the sporadic triumphs, this is I have to say not just a vocation, it's a great gift. But you also know this, for your work, for your passion, every day is a rededication. Painters, dancers, actors, writers, filmmakers. It's the same for all of you, all of us. Every step is a first step. Every brush stroke is a test. Every scene is a lesson. Every shot is a school. So, let the learning continue. — Martin Scorsese

If you go back all the way to the 1920s, filmmakers in Hollywood changed the identity of villains from German to Russian. — Evan Osnos

Throughout Ireland, there's a brilliant community of filmmakers and actors, and I guess there was always a lure to do some work in the place where I come from. — Jamie Dornan

When industry people see something different they don't know what to do with it, so filmmakers who make films about women, they kind of fall through the cracks. If a woman filmmaker makes film about war, they say "Okay, this is a war film, it has ninety percent men in it, we know what to do with it." But then it still gets attacked for not doing it properly. But even though it bothers me I don't want to dwell on the sex and gender thing. — Signe Baumane