A Quote by John Waters
They all want you to make a movie for under a million dollars, which I don't want to. I don't want to be a faux radical film-maker at 70. I did that. I don't need to do it again.
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Maybe I'll just write books. I'd like to make another movie, but I don't want to go back and [do] what they want you to do, to make it for a million dollars. I did that. I don't need a lot, but I need what I used to get, and they don't give you that anymore.
You want the film to be critically successful - you certainly want the film to be financially successful so that you can...well, because that's how movies like this are made, you know, they need to make money. But as a director, you can only make the movie that you want to make.
You have to know that your collaborators want you to make the movie that you want. Don't back down because you think it's nice to them. You need to have the film be the way that you want it.
Many people say, "When I get a million dollars, then I'll be happy because I'll have security," but that's not necessarily so. Most people who acquire a million dollars want another and then another. Or they could be like a good friend of mine who made and lost every dime of a million dollars. It didn't bother him a bit. He wasn't excited about it, but he explained to me, "Zig, I still know everything necessary to make another million dollars, and I've learned what to do not to lost it. I'll simply go back to work and earn it again.
The thing that I think a director has to have in order to make a movie really work, and to certainly make a film that feels personal, which I hope this one does, is that you have to have a sense of the feeling that you want to create in people, the tone which you want to tell the story, and the basic themes you want to come out. You can't compromise on those because you are then not making the movie that you are going to be good at telling.
I'm going to continue doing what I want to do. And if it means I want to go and make a big movie, if it has something to say, I will want to make it. I don't want to spend my life wasting my time. If it's a big movie, I want to do it. If it's a small movie, I want to do it.
The thing that I think a director has to have in order to make a movie really work, and to certainly make a film that feels personal, is that you have to have a sense of the feeling that you want to create in people, the tone which you want to tell the story, and the basic themes you want to come out. You can't compromise on those because you are then not making the movie that you are going to be good at telling.
I want to make a period film, I want to make a film set in another country. I want to make a foreign film. I want to make everything eventually. I am a storyteller. I have many stories to tell.
You can take a handful of dollars, a good story, and people with passion and make a movie that will stand up against any $70 million movie.
To somebody else saying all I need is 10 million dollars, then I've probably made it. But there are Paul McCartneys walking around with $500 million catalogs. That's pretty much what I want. And that's just music. That doesn't even include directing and writing of movies and all of the other things that I want to go on to do. So I have a big dream.
I generally go into a movie with a very strong vision, with how I want to make the film, how I want to shoot the film, how I want to edit the movie, what I want the sound to sound like. So I have a very concrete idea even if I don't storyboard it, I know exactly what I want to do once I get into the sequence. Now having said that, I try not to let that slave me to the process. So if I do storyboard a sequence I don't necessarily stick to it if I discover more exciting things on set.
If you made a movie that no man in the world went near, but every woman in the world went to, you'd have the highest grossing movie of all time. You'd make trillions of dollars. But I don't want to make movies that are just for the ladies. I don't want to ghettoize any audience that way.
I just want to be self-sustainable so that I can continue to just do what I like to do and not make a million dollars. Nobody needs a million dollars.
I don't want egos and personalities on the set that make it more difficult to make the film. I don't want people who take the focus away from the movie and the ideas behind the movie.
A film like 'Good Night And Good Luck,' you make that for $7 million because you know it's a black-and-white film, and it's not an easy sell. If you make it for $7 million, then everybody can have a chance to make a little bit of money, and you get to make the film you want to make.
It's a simple thing he [Frank Daniel] taught me. If you want to make a feature film, you get ideas for 70 scenes. Put them on 3-by-5 cards. As soon as you have 70, you have a feature film.
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