Top 1200 Director Quotes & Sayings - Page 4

I didn't have a burning desire to be a writer or director - writer probably more so, certainly not a director.

We were doing Scarface many years ago...and I remember having my coffee and looking at the beach, the surf, and I saw a hundred people looking out into the ocean. I thought, what's going on? Did some whale get washed up to shore? So I stood up on the table to see what it was, and it was the director, Brian De Palma, standing there alone by the surf and they were all waiting for him. And I never forgot that because it represented to me what a director is, what a director does.

Usually in TV... A TV director could be anything from a main grip to just a glorified cameraman, and sometimes a director can be the person who is hired last. It's very much a producer's medium.

First, you have to be intelligent. I have never met a successful director who isn't intelligent. A director who is not intelligent might have one hit picture, but he won't be able to follow it up. So I look for intelligence.

So, it becomes an exercise in futility if you write something that does not express the film as the director wishes. It's still their ball game. It's their show. I think any successful composer learns how to dance around the director's impulses.

I don't think of myself particularly as a Scottish director, but you are what you are because the first ten years of your life, and where you spend them, brand you. In that sense, I'll always be a Scottish director.

I've been a director and chairman of three good, modest clubs - Coventry, Charlton and Fulham - and the abuse you get can be cruel and shameful. I've had a wonderful life and wouldn't change a moment of it professionally - except that I should never have become a director.

I had one well known director who kept saying, "Now Clint, this is what ...." And I'd say, "I know. I read the script. I'm the one who cast you as the director. Let me show you and you'll correct me if I'm wrong."

When I became a choreographer, I was not assisting any choreographer. I was assisting the director Mansoor Ali Khan for 'Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar.' I was the fourth assistant director.

Live-action films are very much a director's medium, and that director is going to be a very strong voice, a stronger individual voice than you'd have in animation.

Hours is an understatement. I honestly don't know how the director and editor decide each week what actually makes it on the air. There's of course director and cast commentary on each episode on the DVD. We had a blast recording that.

The profession of film director can and should be such a high and precious one; that no man aspiring to it can disregard any knowledge that will make him a better film director or human being.

A writer/director is a tough thing to gauge when someone hasn't directed a movie before. You just don't know. Sometimes it will be a great script that's written beautifully, and then the director who has also written it does not have the facility to translate it.

As an actor, you have to believe in the point of view of a director; as a director, you have to be able to express what your point of view is and invite everybody to join you on that journey. So it's always about opening up.

I've always thought Ed Burns was a profoundly underrated actor. He's a great director, obviously. A great director/writer. But I think he's a stunning actor, too.

For me, the French new wave is Truffaut and Rohmer. Godard I sometimes have trouble with because he's very much of a director's director. I feel Truffaut is such a humanist, and I always go in that direction.

If it's stage, the two most important artists are the actor and the playwright. If it's film, THE most important person is the director. The director says where the camera goes.

Having a good director is very important. It's crucial. When you do good work with a certain director, you want to work with them again, and hopefully vice versa.

As an actress I find the most enjoyable part of acting is really just to please the director. I just want to please my director.

My dad is a successful television producer, director and writer and my mom's a director and writer.

Your own barometer is all you have to go by, and often what makes a good director is knowing when not to say something. On occasions you can find yourself on a film set where the person who is wearing the director's hat is only trying to justify his position.

The director, Moisés Kaufman, just received the national medal of the arts from President [Barack] Obama . He wrote and directed The Laramie Project and he has directed several Pulitzer prize-winning plays. He's a pretty profound director in the theater.

Essentially, it is the director who is the creative head of a film. The final authority on all decisions lies with the director. That is how it should be. And then other team members can give their creative inputs.

It all depends on the directors. Working closely with a director is the main job of a film composer. Interpreting what he perceives as a color, an emotion or mood is very abstract. A director tells you something he wants and then you have to run back...

Working on a play is a vibrant and collaborative business. Everyone from the choreographer to the music director to the director to the writers work together toward the same goal, and everyone chimes in on everything.

As a director you already have a script, you have actors... you have collaborators when you're a director. When you're writing there's no one to collaborate with, there's no material to look at. I haven't adapted something yet, so, I'm sure that would be helpful. When you're writing an original piece you have nothing.

I thoroughly enjoyed shooting for 'Velaikkaran,' and I made a great friend in Sivakarthikeyan during the process. Also, it was wonderful working with director Mohan Raja. I have not seen a director who takes so much effort to get things the best way possible.

I'm doing my best. I read in the paper that I'm an action director. They always say that, "Action director Walter Hill", if they bother writing about me at all. I think that's fine. I'm happy to do the work.

Every relationship should eventually become a long-term relationship. Any director that I meet now isn't just a director. He's potentially a friend, and someone I can call to do a project that I want or that I have.

The difference between an experienced director and a new director is not as big as the difference between individual directors, the temperament they have, and the things they're interested in.

As a director, my job is, and always has been, divided into a number of things: dealing with the crew, the money and the studio, and the marketing and publicity. These are all different jobs that have to be learned and done as well as possible. The celebrity part rarely touches a director.

I believe that the director is really the soul. It is a collaborative effort, but the director is the one who needs to have that vision. It could be a great script, but it starts from there. You need to have good material, at least, but if you don't have someone with vision, it's just words.

I want to take roles that challenge me and I want to like the script and obviously feel connected with the director because the director to me is so important.

Even though I studied in New York and I know the American system, I come from France where I learned that with movies in France where the director is king. There's no such thing as a studio edit. It's the director's cut, period.

In some instances, I would say the writer does deserve equal billing with the director. In other instances the director - especially if he wrote part of the script himself - is clearly more the author of the movie.

I've always noticed a difference between working with a director and working with a writer/director. In how much they're invested and how specific they are.

J.J. Abrams is a director with no ego. He is a director who has a very consistent attitude when he's at work. He's funny, he's brilliant, he's a combination of all these really great things. J.J. is the kind of person who sees the bigger picture before anybody else does. It sounds simple but not all directors do that.

I thought I was depressed because I wasn't a writer/director. I moved into a space where I'm a writer/director, my movie is a hit at Sundance, I have a wonderful, loving boyfriend, and wow, I have financial stability. Why can't I get out of bed still?

For me, it's not like I am going to look at the money the director's film has made before their film... For me, it is about working with the director whose work I have admired.

A casting director who'd cast me in 'Assassins' sent a video to Kevin Reynolds, the director, and Mel Gibson, whose company is producing '187.' Then I went in and auditioned, and a few hours later, they called me.

If you have a vision or if you believe the director has a vision, then at least you've got something to talk about, something to try and head to and I think that's mandatory for every director to have to do a good job.

As a director, I do very few takes, because I feel like you hire the right actor and they'll do the job right. And the directors that I've worked with and had the best luck with - Jason and [ Steven] Soderbergh and the Coen brothers - all have been that kind of director.

The 9/11 Commission strongly recommends that the National Intelligence Director be fully in control of the budget, from developing it to implementing it, to ensuring that the National Intelligence Director has the clout to make decisions.

An actor is nothing without the vision of the director. The director needs to have a vision that will cross boundaries, that makes the audience sit on the edge of their seats and that pushes the envelope.

I understood that I was not the best director in the world nor the worst director in the world. I realized that there is a very mysterious element to what works and what doesn't work in the theater. And it's good to know that from the beginning.

If I had to choose criteria, for me, it's about first the director. I want to be a part of something that's good and intellectually challenging. After the director it's the character and the story. That's the deal for me.

It's interesting in seeing when I'm talking to men in particular and telling them I'm an actress versus a director and the different turn the conversation will take when I say I'm a director. The level of respect is very interesting.

I think what makes a good actor's director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie.

After reading the script I ask the director about my character's background, what does he do, how he walks, talks, what clothes he wears... I ask the director how he is looking at it.

With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this.

In Hollywood there's no real material. They would send me stuff, but I hadn't even seen the director. If I don't see the director's eyes, I'm not going. I'm not even going to pack my bags.

My musical director, Mark Cherry, is the most wonderful person who ever lived on God's good green Earth. He's my director, he does the arrangements. Really, he does everything - including certain janitorial chores!

I don't recall a show I've ever been on that had the same director do two episodes in a row, but in England, they do it all the time. In England, they'll just have one director for eight episodes. That was the British system that Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner wanted to bring to the States. I think there was a nice merger of the two systems. They might have gone with one director, but John had obligations on The Village, and he had to leave and come back, so it seemed like a natural place to break it up.

In creating music you are the writer, the director, the producer, you create it from scratch. Obviously in playing a role in a film, you take guidance and put your trust into the director. You come into it and you really trust people.

You can have an amazing director and terrible script, and the film's not going to be great. But if you have the most incredible script and an okay director, you could still get a really good film.

When I worked as an assistant director in 2007, Indraganti Mohan Krishna offered me a lead role. Now, the same director has made me a villain in 'Gentleman.'

As an actor, we can only do what the director wants. Only the director has a vision of the entire film.

That's the best way to work on a project: talk to the director. In the end, it's the director's idea of how they perceive the movie and how they perceive the characters.

I think the writer's quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I'd have thought, slightly more risky.

We haven't seen a situation where you have the FBI director talk about an investigation side by side with the attorney general who confirms, yes, I accept the recommendation of the FBI director.