A Quote by Alan Ball

There are times when I am directing, and there are a couple of moments I didn't get the way I wanted, but I know I still have other angles to shoot and I have to be done by noon; I move on.
You know how mountains get moved? Everyone who can move a couple, move a couple. Those who can move rocks, move rocks. Those who can move boulders, move boulders. That's how mountains get moved. If every one of us did everything we could, I believe we would be in a different world.
Working on a film, the setup for an action sequence takes a long time, and we need to shoot the scene many times to get different angles.
I've been asked to write an autobiography, and I've started it a couple of times, on different angles, and maybe one day I will, but you know what? There's time for that because I'd like to have the whole story.
I think a lot of times photo sessions is just a test, maybe, for models. Sometimes it's for money. I'm going to shoot a girl in a couple weeks in Italy who has been writing me for a couple years. She sends photos all the time and it's kind of like a game. A lot of times people write and then they just want to see if I'm interested. If I say I am, I never hear from them again.
I get very close to people when I'm shooting them. We would go and shoot a scene with Lucy, and I would spend the whole time telling her about Rob. Then I would go shoot a scene with Rob and tell him all about Lucy. Eventually they wanted to know each other. These are two people who would never have overlapped in any other way or context. We brought to the garden at Rob's office and just sat and watched what unfolded. I remember weeping behind the camera, because I was so moved by the way they connected.
Food scenes in movies are traditionally nightmares to shoot - you just can't fake eating, and you usually have to repeat it a lot of times to get the angles you need. It's actually quite a lot to ask of actors, and there's really nowhere to hide.
OK, if he's a grappler, good for me, I know what to do. If he's a kickboxer, I gotta get in a clinch and move a certain way. If he's a karate man, he moves a different way, but I'm still going to have to clinch. So, a sumo wrestler, I have to clinch. It's just, how I get there, how I move it.
I've done this a couple times, been to a couple different camps and a couple different AAU practices to talk to kids. I tell them you have to be dedicated, have to decide if you want to be a serious basketball player or not. They always ask, 'What if you get discouraged?' You have to remember what your goal was in the first place.
The timing for directing is usually because it takes that long to develop a piece and then do pre-production and then post-production. It takes at least a couple of years. I prefer directing to doing other things. Directing and writing seem to be infinitely more creative
No matter how far I get into my career, even if I get hurt again, it's just a part of who I am. On the flip, I'm a warrior, I'm a soldier, I get up. As many times as I fell, I've still gotten up, and that's way more rewarding to me than any other thing that I've ever accomplished, and I'm proud of that.
I've always wanted to shoot a good percentage for my team, because I'm the point guard, and I can take fewer shots, still score more, so that I can get my teammates feeling good about themselves. That was always my feeling - that if I shoot a high percentage, I don't have to shoot a ton.
There have been times when I wanted children and other times I've been grateful not to have them. I am a mess if I have to say goodbye to my dog for longer than five days. I don't know how I would deal with kissing my children as I left for work. I know there are women who are able to do that. I don't know if I could.
I would consider directing. I think directing myself would be tough, but I'm definitely interested in directing. I might start off directing a play before I move to a film.
Directing a movie precludes me from being involved in any greater way. But, the job was never to do more, it was always to enable. Sometimes as a producer, you're creating and writing it, or sometimes you're writing and directing it, or other times you're there from the very beginning.
Discover the time of day when you write best, and write then. For me it's about 7 am to noon. For other people it's overnight. Try not to do anything other than write between those times.
I tried to go to college in the U.K. a couple of times, but at that point, I think I was a little disillusioned with education. It wasn't giving me what I wanted it to. I needed freedom to create and do the things that I wanted to explore, and it wasn't really doing that: it was still very prescriptive.
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