A Quote by Alex Kurtzman

When you're working on a scene, both in the script phase and also in the moment, you look around and you wait for the lightning bolt to strike you and based on your instincts tell you what the right thing to do is here. And that can result in anything from a change of dialogue to the realisation that what you thought was a dramatic scene should actually have some humour. And maybe if you stage it this way it's funnier, or if you put the camera here it tells a different story. That stuff is kind of everything when you're a director.
A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don't do that on stage
A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don't do that on stage.
It's like you might have some great scene that you love but for some reason - and you can't necessarily put your finger on it - the movie's not working or it seems slow or ponderous in some way, and even though it has your favorite scene in there, actually the favorite scene is the culprit. That's the painful thing about editing, is trying to locate those things that are holding the movie back and then having the guts to cut them. And it is painful to do it.
Because of the way that I work with the actors and because a scene is not in this rigid and literal interpretation of something written, I can constantly change stuff, which means I can get a scene absolutely perfect, and then when we go to shoot it, the requirements of the shot mean it would be useful to extend the dialogue or take a line out or swap things around. So the camera doesn't serve the action. The action serves the camera. That's important. So it becomes more and more organic and integrated.
I always try to tell the story the best possible way. I create the mood for each scene in a way that the audience feels that they are right there with me and they feel actually in the mood that was right for the scene.
I wanted to be a real writer, you can put it this way, but I was lazy. So I thought that cinema would be funnier because it's collective, and it's crazy, and it's chaotic, and also because I was based in Spain. So I said it will be easy to make a career of that - because all the other filmmakers there are very bad. And it will be funny at the same time. So this was the point. It will be funnier, easier, and maybe at the end there will be some unknown beauty, and maybe on the way we'll create the dream that a different logic is possible for life.
Like behind the car or in the pub, to do a scene, a proper nice dramatic scene, it's always a treat. And they're usually shot as one, so you've got a big chunk of dialogue to learn, and you feel like you're working.
No, my favorite scene was Brienne finding Arya and The Hound. I thought that the writing and the dialogue and the confusion that spirals into the fight was such a cool scene. I knew I was gonna film it in Iceland and I did a lot of - I really scouted and climbed around Iceland to find those locations and I just couldn't wait to do that.
I don't particularly like the idea that there's an arc to the story and that therefore in this scene you have to convey this bit of information or emotion. I like more the feeling that, of course, there is a shape to the story, but that each scene should feel right, should be true at that moment, and that gradually you accumulate these moments of truth until you get enough of them together that it becomes a story that's interesting.
I don't think that any scene [in Pineapple Express] is word for word how you'd find it in the script. Some of it was much more loose than others. The last scene with me, Danny [McBride] and James [Franko] in the diner - there was never even a script for that scene. Usually we write something, but for that scene we literally wrote nothing.
Directors are always changing things at the last minute. Actors will do a scene, and the director will say, ‘Okay, that was perfect, but this time, Bob, instead of saying “What’s for dinner?” you say, “Wait a minute! Benzene is actually a hydrocarbon!” And say it with a Norwegian accent. Also, we think maybe your character should have no arms.
For me, emotion comes first. If I have to change a scene, invent a scene, change dialogue, or put Graff by the lake in order to feel that dynamic, and the end results feels like 'Ender's Game,' then hopefully it works.
What I don't like is when I see stuff that I know has had a lot of improv done or is playing around where there's no purpose to the scene other than to just be funny. What you don't want is funny scene, funny scene, funny scene, and now here's the epiphany scene and then the movie's over.
I think it's very valuable as an actor to throw yourself back into having that direct connection with an audience on-stage and work that muscle. It is a very different type of work and equally fascinating. I mean, I've very much in love with filmmaking because I really love the way you can tell stories with a camera and how music and everything contributes to the story in a very direct way. But I also think it's very valuable to come back to theatre, so if the right script came along I would love to come back to London and do some more.
Both the 'Gregor' series and 'The Hunger Games' are what I call lightning-bolt ideas. There was a moment where the idea came to me. With 'The Hunger Games,' the lightning bolt sort of hit at a moment when I was channel surfing between reality TV and the coverage of the Iraq war.
You're looking, moment by moment and scene by scene, how you can tell the most interesting story. So, we had this great short and we knew that we had a story about a boy and his dog. Because we had that pure emotional core, we could go on crazy tangents and always come back to Victor and Sparky. When I wrote in stuff like Weird Girl and the cat poop, Dutch Day and the windmill, it felt like it was part of Tim's universe.
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