I was a novelist first. But in the mid-’80s, I did work in television for ten years. And yes, that was frequently the reaction to my scripts. People would say, ‘You know, George, this is great. We love it, a terrific script, but it would cost five times our budget to shoot this.’
Obviously, a skirt does present certain problems that I had to be aware of. But when it came to the shoot and we were rolling, I didn’t really pay it any attention. It wasn’t too bad.
Not every script that rolls in is ready to shoot. Few are, actually. So you go back and work on the thing.
I always wanted to create this community that would come and tell their own story, shoot it – and watch them. The idea is to not have one entity who creates the work, the project, and another entity who consumes it; the idea is people create their own work, like somebody cultivating his garden.
Nothing prepares you for shooting in the sea. Some days the sea is choppy, some days the waves are long. When there is no wind, it’s fantastic to shoot, but your brain is burning because of the heat. You are shooting hand-held and taking a crane on a boat, which is risky since you can get toppled over.
Working out for me really depends on my shoot schedule, but I try to move my body every day. I really believe in exercise as an anti-depressant. It’s a great way to feel better.
The whole series is black-and-white, so when I went to shoot one of the women I only had black-and-white film with me. She had reddish hair and was a very pretty girl, a nice girl.
‘Push’ had a story, ‘The Paperboy’ story you could just throw up in the air and shoot holes through the book because the story wasn’t as strong. But I felt the characters were stronger in ‘The Paperboy’; they were vivid.
I love Paris – it’s one of my favorite cities – and so to shoot a video in Paris was a dream come true.
If I’m going to work, hopefully I have a late call time, and can hang out with Rain and our nanny until we shoot.
The average scene in a film, you have to shoot it 15, 20 times. That means you got to laugh or cry 15, 20 times.
A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases.
We must force the government to stop the bird migration. We must shoot all birds, field all our men and troops… and force migratory birds to stay where they are.
You don’t need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.
There are two phases to a movie. First you shoot the movie, and then you make the movie. Generally, post-production is longer than filming.
I love Chicago, but in a lot of ways it’s a disappointment. You can work there for years and years, and because you’re in Chicago, you don’t get the recognition. It has some of the best theater in the country, but when they shoot a movie there, they bring in all their actors.
We didn’t shoot in 3-D. They’ve talked about doing a conversion and there’s been a lot of talk about us doing ‘Sucker Punch’ in 3-D, but I’m still waiting to see.
You don’t service a big, fun premise comedy and then shoot yourself in the foot with too much irony. You need the audience to invest in the fun and the warmth and generally care about the characters.
It’s actually great to shoot far away from Hollywood because we don’t have the distractions of the parties and premieres and all that. And, of course, you can save money – there are no good shoe stores.
