I think that technological tools that filmmakers use to tell stories, in a perfect world, need to become invisible. When it’s brand new and it’s never been seen before and you’re birthing this stuff, it’s very much on people’s minds.
I think all indie filmmakers should just give up on distribution.
The reason why a filmmaker will invest in a male actor is because he will be able to sustain footfalls in the theatre till he turns 50.
I’m the most successful filmmaker in the country; what do I need PR for?
Some filmmakers set out to re-create the theater experience they got on Broadway. They kept everything the same. They shot the original casts. We reinvent the whole thing, look at it solely as a movie. We pretend that nobody saw ‘Chicago’ or ‘Hairspray.’
Success stems from the producer creating the optimal conditions for the filmmaker’s own creative process. Not from steering the filmmaker through a one-size-fits-all approach.
I feel like the great filmmakers who have a true voice, yeah they take the notes, they understand the notes, but it’s really about the notes underneath the notes. When you do a test screening and somebody says, ‘Well, I didn’t like the love story,’ but it was probably just too long.
I want the Latino ‘Do the Right Thing’ to happen. I want filmmakers whose voices are not represented to get a shot.
Yeah, it’s odd when you look back at your own work. Some filmmakers don’t look back at their work at all. I look at my work a lot, actually. I feel like I learned something while looking at stuff I’ve done in terms of what I’m going to do in the future, mistakes I’ve made and things at work or what have you.
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.
If a filmmaker is making a movie about a nice Midwestern family or a story that needs a very white character or a black or a Chinese, then I don’t expect to go up for it. But I know, especially in places like New York, there’s no excuse not to see various colors.
As a filmmaker, you realize that places have character based on their history as much as a face does or an actor does.
It’s very difficult to figure out, for me, what stops really talented young female filmmakers from having the kind of careers that their really talented young male counterparts are having.
As a filmmaker, you want people to understand and get what you do, and it’s a lot to ask for.
Even from a really young age I was a huge movie buff – five, six, seven, eight. Just loved movies, but in a more in-depth way than most kids that loved movies at that time. I’d find a filmmaker or something and want to see all his movies.
I think it’s a mistake for young filmmakers to just buy digital equipment and shoot a feature. Make short films first, make your mistakes and learn from them.
I hope to continue my friendship with France and its filmmakers for many years to come.
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.
I admire a lot of Spanish filmmakers and actors. I grew up watching a lot of Spanish films and novellas, and there’s just so much talent out there.
I understand the rules of Superman – not necessarily better than anyone else – but better than a normal filmmaker would. After doing ‘Watchmen’ and digging that deep into the why of superheroes, when Superman is presented to you, I felt like I was in a unique position to say ‘I get this guy. I know what this is.’
For me, I want to see diversity in storytelling sources because we live in a very diverse society, and the stories are for the whole society. That’s really important. For me, as a female filmmaker, when I was out on the festival circuit on 2006, I felt like such a freaking anomaly – an oddity.
I think it’s our obligation as filmmakers, as people investigating the world, to create the reality that is most insightful to the issues at hand. Here are human beings, like us, boasting about atrocities that should be unimaginable.
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.
There’s really no difference between what I do and what a male filmmaker might do. I mean we all try to make our days, we all try to give the best performances we can, we try to make our budget, we try to make the best movie we possibly can.
‘Ageism,’ or whatever you want to call it, is a very English phenomenon. You don’t get it too much in many other cultures. And no one says it about authors or poets or filmmakers. ‘Oh, they’re too old to make films or write books.’
I live in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. and spend time in the West Village, where my wife Elizabeth Cotnoir, a writer-producer and documentary filmmaker, has an office.
Justin Lin, the writer and director of the teenage-wasteland drama ‘Better Luck Tomorrow,’ a shrewdly tense piece of storytelling, recognizes that sometimes it’s good for a filmmaker to stir up trouble.
‘Saw’ was good and bad. It was good in that it gave me a career start, but it was also negative in that it really marginalized me as a filmmaker.
‘Fast and Furious’ is the only franchise that I’ve directed that I did not create from scratch. So it definitely was an eye-opening experience for me coming to that world. I had to be respectful of the roles that had been established by the filmmakers before me, and I was cool with that.
If you look at the most meaningful science fiction, it didn’t come from watching other films. We seem to be in a place now where filmmakers make films based on other films because that’s where the stimuli and influence comes from.
I know that some filmmakers strive for a kind of naturalistic approach, but you’re never going to capture something that’s really natural – just the simple fact that you choose to put a frame around something means that you’ve already chosen one particular thing to put more attention on.
My three Ps: passion, patience, perseverance. You have to do this if you’ve got to be a filmmaker.
We probably do not have a large enough industry here to ably support the independent filmmaker to move in and out. Much of the industry is based on full-time jobs here, institutionalised jobs.
‘All the President’s Men’ is a movie that has a very personal place for me because it made me want to be a journalist, and then it made me want to be a filmmaker.
I think I draw most inspiration from writers like Richelle Mead and filmmakers like John Hughes. They both really understand the experience of being a teenager and how insistent and intense everything feels, but they’re also smart, savvy, and fun.
When I grew up, a director was Cecil B DeMille, a guy sitting down with a megaphone speaking. He was the voice of God, the image of God. When I went to start making docs, I quickly turned the megaphone to my ear not to my mouth. It’s more about funneling in the words and listening as doc filmmaker.
As a filmmaker whose first film was made with the DIY tools of digital cinema, I love how the democratization of the filmmaking process and platforms like YouTube enables people to tell stories that in previous generations simply could not be told.
It’s cruel to compare two actors working with two different filmmakers on two different characters.
I’m a filmmaker to my bones.
Xavier Gens is probably the busiest filmmaker that I know.
I learned how to tell stories with Jay-Z on ‘City Is Mine.’ I learned how to film and choreograph dancing on ‘Can I Get A…,’ and I got to kind of be a documentary filmmaker with ‘Hard Knock Life.’
I attempt to create a form of seriocomic entertainment to either delight, enlighten, or disgust, whichever you’d like. In terms of making motion pictures, I write and direct and act. I guess you’d say I’m a filmmaker.
I don’t really consider myself an American filmmaker like, say, Ron Howard might be considered an American filmmaker. If I’m doing something and it seems to me to be reminiscent of an Italian giallo, I’m gonna to do it like an Italian giallo.
I was actually shooting ‘Warm Bodies’ on the day that ’50/50′ came out, which I don’t recommend to other filmmakers because I was sort of a wreck. Actually, it was good for me, because I had work to do, so I couldn’t obsess all day and be checking how ’50/50′ was doing!
I get really excited when I see filmmakers make something that is subtle and feels real. It is really tough to do right.
Any filmmaker who has translated some personal vision into a film that actually gets shot and distributed is wildly successful. Congratulations! Anything after that is gravy.
Indian epics are full of violence, and such stories have shaped India. As filmmakers, I don’t think anyone in India would tone down violence, keeping in mind the censorship.
No one – black, white, or any different – walks away from a three-picture deal with a studio. That’s every filmmaker’s dream. But it wasn’t mine.
I only want to work with interesting filmmakers.
I don’t necessarily see myself as an experienced filmmaker just because I’ve been in a few movies.
