A Quote by Pablo Larrain

There are some filmmakers like the Coen brothers that are very precise. They make shooting boards, they do it shot by shot, and they follow every single line in their own script. They make amazing movies, and I admire them so much, but I can't do that. I have no idea how the movie will exactly be. While shooting, I just try to create an accident that I don't control very well - grabbing things from different sources and ideas, and then having a sensation somewhere that it will make sense.
A movie goes from several stages, from idea to script. As you continue shooting, you will make some adjustments. You're constantly adjusting. It's like a piece of music. You're constantly trying to make it better.
If you do all that work of figuring out exactly how writing is done, then it's available to you at anytime, and you can build on it. It's like the difference between shooting one hoop and having it go in by accident and saying later, 'I shot a basket,' - and practicing so much you can do it whenever you want.
I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.
I try to respect the rules of the silent movies and I tried to make signification to make sense, and also the crew were very good and the fact that we shot in LA in the real Hollywood, studios and houses. We shot in the bed of Mary Pickford, and you cannot be any more accurate than that, so that helped a lot.
When you try to be true to the script, changes occur. A script is there to show us a certain direction. But when you actually have the actors in and you start shooting the movie, you have the actor say a line and it doesn't sound right so you change it and make it different. It's the script that gives birth to these changes and the more you try to stay true to the script, the more that happens.
After college, I really looked at every single shot that I shot. Pretty much every shot in my sophomore year and my junior year and just watched my form. I watched how I shot it from 3, and I just noticed I was a very undisciplined shooter.
While directing in theater that the actors will - I don't know if it's competitiveness or what it is, but they love to make each other laugh. They love to impress each other in rehearsal. They'll try something for a reaction. But in film, you're very often not all together in the room at the same time. You're shooting one day, somebody else is shooting the next. It's a totally different dynamic.
I think every filmmaker in Europe would be lying if they didn't say one day they just wanted to make a movie here in Hollywood or at least try it. It's very different from European filmmaking, because here it's like a real industry. It's very much about money and making money, which I think is fine, because it's very expensive to make movies.
In terms of how I work with actors, having worked so heavily on the script I have a very clear idea of the characters; they are reasonably well illustrated in the script. If you cast it right, to a great degree you can hand it over to the actor and I just make suggestions. I'm not the kind of director who needs or wants to get into too much finessing. Ideally, when you hit the set, you have this conversation, like, 'eh, what did you think?' 'I don't know, what did you think?' 'Why don't we just try it again, make a few physical changes.'
'Toybox' is that kind of game that will stretch your mental capacity by doing very simple things like solving an easy puzzle of shooting aliens. You'll just need to do everything at the same time to make it through alive. Just to make things tricky, the tasks change every week so you can't get used to any set.
When you're done shooting, the movie that you're going to release when you're done shooting is as bad as it will ever be. And then through editing, and finishing the effects and adding music, you get to make the movie better again. So I'm really hard on myself and on the movie.
What you really need to build a character is exactly what you don't have in the movies - time. You know, movies are like a line drawing. You have to make very quick decisions, which are, in the end instinctive. Or you make a decision to say "Well, maybe I can do that, because... Oh, that could be irritating after a while, or distracting, etc. etc." Some of it is a matter of time, always.
I shot a lot of commercials and sometimes I enjoy the commercial shooting and sometimes I really hate it, but in thirty seconds or one minute, you can make some remarkable work shooting in one or two or three days.
As a young filmmaker, I shot a lot of stuff because I wanted to make sure that I got everything, but now I've gotten much more precise with my shooting. Editing is a whole other layer because then, sometimes you realize characters don't even need to say this or that. It becomes an issue of exposition, and over-explaining something. In the script, I'd reinforce certain things about what I wanted people to know two or three times, but in the editing room, I'd be like, "I only need to say this once, maybe twice."
I was never a critic. I was a journalist and wrote about filmmakers, but I didn't review movies per se. I make that distinction only because I came to it strictly as someone who was just a lover of storytellers and cinematic storytellers. And I still am. I'm still a great movie fan, and I ,that love of movies is very much alive in me. I approach the movies I make as a movie-lover as much as a movie-maker.
It's important to strengthen my body while also improving my shot. Shooting and defense are how I'll make my living, so those are the areas I really have to work on.
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