A Quote by Whit Stillman
So much of selling a film in the industry is about creating a fulcrum where all the pressure comes to bear, and something seems suddenly valuable and approved by an audience. It's amazing how people could pick up tons of films on the cheap, but they don't because they wait until everything is laid out for them.
Related Quotes
I hadn't realized how much I'd relied on his scowls or his shrugs or his grudging looks of approval to help me figure something out-until they weren't there anymore. Or how I could talk to some people about a lot of things but only to him about everything. And how unbelievably valuable that was.
Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems they do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them coming irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of our feelings, sometimes the nerves that can not bear it any longer, they put up with a great deal, they put up with everything, it was as if they were wearing armor, we might say.
The kind of sleep that I had during my own film [Certified Copy] screening in Cannes is different. It's not because of the specificity of the film. It was because of my relationship as an author to this film. Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them. Whereas this time, I didn't have that responsibility on my shoulders.
But you certainly don't have perspective. And there's so much pressure going into that opening night because you know there's journalists, tons of acquisitions people, and the fate of your film in some ways, if not decided, is really affected by how it screens that night.
I knew nothing about the independent film industry. I didn't know much about the industry itself. All I knew was how to watch movies, how to enjoy them, how to hate them, how not to like them.
I can walk about London and see a society that seems an absolutely revolutionary change from the 1950s, that seems completely and utterly different, and then I can pick up on something where you suddenly see that it's not.
People are fascinated about the world above them because it seems so out-of-reach. My jump gave them an opportunity to come along for the ride. They could watch live on their screens how someone rises all the way up into the stratosphere.
I've never been the guy to sit back and wait until someone approved something I was passionate about.
Audience interest is directly proportionate to the presenter's preparation. You better spend time and energy on any presentations where the stakes are high. If you are trying to close a large sale or speak at a conference to an audience of potential clients, you better be ON your game. An audience can tell how much energy you spent on your presentation, which is a reflection of how much you valued their time. If they gave you an hour of their time, you need to make it worth it to them by treating their time as a valuable asset by making the content valuable to them.
Even during 'Udta Punjab,' I didn't say much until the film was out. I feel it's incorrect to talk about a film until everything falls into place.
I could be inspired by something I see or something I hear and write down or send to a friend or a writer or whether I have instrumental tracks or just a couple chords recorded on my phone. If I have a couple sessions set, I'll go into the studio with the people I'm lucky enough to call my friends because I feel like I can talk to them and then suddenly our conversations turn into these songs you hear on the radio. I still don't understand how it happens but I talk about my experiences and my situations and everything and then they turn into these amazing pop songs.
I think that film festivals, we're very often given to understand, are about filmmakers and about films and about the industry of filmmaking. I don't believe that they are, I believe that film festivals are about film audiences, and about giving an audience the encouragement to feel really empowered and to stretch the elastic of their taste.
I think sometimes there are films where I understand what they are about, but there are also some mysterious areas in the film where I haven't got the whole image and I haven't got everything. And then it stays much longer with me, because I have to somehow put myself much more into the film to get it. And so this is what I'm trying to do with my films.
I think movies in general should have more respect for the audience than they do. Too many films are afraid to confuse people, so all the information is given to them right away, and there's nothing left for the film to do. It ruins many stories, because everything becomes obvious and predictable. I want my films to engage people more and make them more actively involved in the story.
There's no other industry in the world where you could spend $100m as frivolously as they do in the film industry. Think about how much good you could do with $100m... it can be spent in 20 minutes on a movie.
I've never watched my films with an everyday audience so it was really crazy to watch people clap at the end of my film - with no one there, no actors, no people from the film. It was just a spontaneous reaction, so I thought that was probably the best compliment you could get from an audience.
Related Authors
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Quotes
Mexican
Director
Ava DuVernay Quotes
American
Director
David Lynch Quotes
American
Director
George Lucas Quotes
American
Director
Guillermo del Toro Quotes
Mexican
Director
John Waters Quotes
American
Director
Judd Apatow Quotes
American
Director
Martin Scorsese Quotes
American
Director
Nicolas Winding Refn Quotes
Danish
Director
Oliver Stone Quotes
American
Director
Peter Jackson Quotes
New Zealander
Director
Quentin Tarantino Quotes
American
Director
Ridley Scott Quotes
British
Director
Steven Spielberg Quotes
American
Director
Werner Herzog Quotes
German
Director
Woody Allen Quotes
American
Director