Top 1200 Director Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

Every film I've ever worked on, and that includes 'Braveheart' and 'Trainspotting,' I've always witnessed a director having a breakdown. Every director will have a day, without exception, where they just can't do it anymore, they don't know what to say to their cameraman, their cast. It's the sign of real, physical exhaustion.

Finally, I was called for "The Office" and I was really lucky, because a lot of the shows that I went out for I would work my way up from, like, an audition with the casting director to the director to the producers to the studio, I'd go through seven auditions, and then they'd give the role to a famous actress.

When a film works, the director had a lot to do with that, but the director also didn't have a lot to do with that. There are so many moving parts. It's really about being open to how the river is flowing and trying to get on the river.

As a director, you're a bit of a dictator. But I feel that you're a better director if you're open to other people's ideas. It means that it's tougher: you have to be in a choosing process; you have to put the ego aside. As long as everybody's aiming in the same direction... I'm open to my main partners in the film crew.

If you didn't get it right and then you have to release a director's cut to undo what the studio made you release, I don't know, either it's some marketing thing for them to get more money or the director didn't do his job.

Just trying to get to know what director Bill Condon wanted. He's a great director and knows exactly what he wants. He knew every lyric to every song; knew where a handicap was.

I have to say that whatever decisions I make, I really do think that movie making is a director's medium. They are the people that ultimately shape the film, and a director can take great material and turn it into garbage if they are not capable of making a good movie.

With Lady Gaga I really stretched myself as a creative director, and because I was with this artist from before she got signed I was able to really take control of the opportunity and execute as a creative director.

Women are just more oriented toward feelings - and I don't mean that in a negative way. But with a male actor and a male director, the emotional exploration can only go so far. With a female director, you can end up exploring so many more depths.

I always try to stick to the script because I want to respect the writers, and I want to respect the director. But if the director and my fellow actors are okay with me playing with it a little bit, then I definitely want to play with it.

I am a director because I believe in my own impulses and my own point of view, and that belief encourages me to tell stories that will move, provoke, and change people. But I became a director because I wanted to be a part of the world.

I went off and did 'Space,' which turned out very well, and when the series was picked up, my options were to stay with 'Space' as a producer/director or go to 'The X-Files' as a producer/director.

I mean, it feels like a homecoming in a really wonderfully comfortable place to be - the same director, the same musical director, my same dressing room! [laughs] It's a great place to build something with freedom.

I always relish the idea of collaborating with the director on creating the sound world, the sound spectrum, and the sound environment of the film. I use every means at my disposal to create a score that is as strong and powerful to enhance the director's vision for the film.

The director is simply the audience. So the terrible burden of the director is to take the place of that yawning vacuum, to be the audience and to select from what happens during the day which movement shall be a disaster and which a gala night. His job is to preside over accidents.

Those who have themselves for a spiritual director have a fool for a spiritual director.

I've always had a strange acting life. I'm the daughter of a director, and a very French, typical director who fell in love with every single one of his actresses. And that's also something that's kind of normal in the acting business, because everything is based on desire, one way or the other.

In my film 'Queen', there was a funny moment with the bra. My director called and said they are blurring the bra. They said it is vulgar. Our director was furious about it. We are artistes... We see props as they are. A woman's bra is not a danger to the society.

The director is responsible for interpreting the playwright's work through the cast with the help of the staff. It is the director's artistic concept of the play that the cast, staff, and crew work to obtain.

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. That's what I mean when I say branding and developing yourself, as a business.

When there's an actor involved, the actor's talking to the director or the director's talking to the actor. But when there are not those two people interacting, it's all one person in your own mind, you have to be so extra-clear about what you need.

When I meet a good actor, I would like to be a director. When I meet a good director, I would like to be an actor. When there is a good script, I would like to be both a director and an actor. The switch is very natural, not intentional.

I'm the type of actor that believes the director has to be in charge. I've been on sets where the actor's ego was the most important thing, and with a director that messes it up. But I don't like a dictator, I want it to be collaborative - the best idea wins. If I feel respected, and I'm going to give that back. If a director wants to try something, cool, I'll give it back. I also feel like they cast me for a reason, so I'm going to make my mark on it... let me do my thing.

As long as you have a director, that's your feedback. It's the director telling you, "Okay. That was great! Okay. Can we add a little? Can you tweak it like this? Can you make it more high pitched? Can you give it a little growl?"

My dream is to become a director. I want to direct a Hindi film. I have two scripts ready. One of them is a fantasy-adventure, while the other is a thriller. I've assisted my brother Selvaraghavan, who's a well-known director in Tamil cinema. I've also made short films.

It's sometimes discouraging to see all of a director's movies, because there's so much repetition. The auteurists took this to be a sign of a director's artistry, that you could recognize his movies. But it can also be a sign that he's a hack.

You know, the dirty secret in the Director's Guild is that the average life expectancy of Director's Guild members is 57 years old. The stress level is so high and directors are generally really out of shape, cause they sit in the chair and they eat craft service.

The Screen Directors Guild was organized solely by and for the motion picture director... We are not anti-anything: The Guild being formed for the purpose of assisting and improving the director's work in the form of a collective body, rather than as an individual, as was necessary in the past.

Directors are our teachers, and I'm always craving to work with a great director. They're pretty much the first thing that interests me about a project. Let's put it this way: It'll take me a lot longer to read a script if there's no director attached.

As the cinematographer is usually more visual than the director is and full cooperation is really the answer and to make a great film, you need a good director and you need a good cinematographer.

Originally, I was an assistant director. For many people in that role, becoming a director is the ultimate goal. But, in my case, that wasn't my goal at all. I just had fun doing it. The schedule was hard, but I enjoyed it greatly so I just kept at it.

When you have a director who has work you can identify from the past, it gives you some reference point as to what their interpretation of the story might be, and how that might jibe, right or wrong, with how you see it. But with a first-time director, you don't really know where you're at.

As the director, it's just a constant stream of meetings where you meet with all of the creatives who make all of the decisions for every part of the episodes. You're also scouting for locations, deciding on the locations, meeting with your first associate director; mine was Jennifer Truelove. She's one of my favorite people on the planet.

Scott Frank and I are director friends. We met through the Sundance Labs and he's advised me on my first projects - I've visited him on set, we've shared first cuts with each other, and we're more like director pals than anything else.

'Independent' means one thing to me: It means that regardless of the source of financing, the director's voice is extremely present. It's such a pretentious term, but it's auteurist cinema. Director-driven, personal, auteurist... Whatever word you want.

I think every director's different. Every director's got his own style. I mean, when I directed, I basically just screamed for eight hours a day, twelve hours a day.

The film is a direct mirror of the director. If your director doesn't know how to dress, there will be an aesthetic of the film that won't come through - whether it's in the costumes if he doesn't know exactly what he wants or the look of the film.

I usually work with the director and it's just a collaboration between me and the one person. I think you make good movies that way. If the director and the composer can have this common goal and this excitement about making something great, then you're going to do something good.

'Control' had to do with my own life a lot, and that's why that seemed to be a film I could be the director of, because I had an emotional attachment to the whole story. And because of that experience, I feel that I can try other films. I didn't set out to become a director.

Fundamentally, I always find that most of the films that I've put out are essentially the director's cut. Part of the process with a director's cut is the leaving behind of certain aspects of the movie that we don't feel necessary because they aren't part of the dynamic of the story.

I think a director is hugely responsible for the fate of a film, so if it does well, he should be appreciated. As an actor, I can only perform well or choose to work with a good director in a good film.

I think each character is different for me, but I am a director's actor. So if I get the right vision and right guidance from my director, I think sky is the limit for me.

As a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. And my own passion was that I wanted to be a film director. I realized that being an astronaut was not going to be an option, so I said, "Well, I'm going to be a director and do films in space."

I spent almost eight years working for the Obama administration, in the White House as the deputy press secretary, deputy communications director, communications director, and as the spokesperson at the State Department.

As a director, you're incredibly proud when an individual steps up to the podium and is acknowledged for their work. But to have an entire company acknowledged, there is just no higher honor ever paid for that company - or for the director, for that matter.

When I move from being a cameraman to being a director I looked at a lot of other cameramen who tried to make the move. And in each case they moved up their camera operator to be the DP, which really meant they didn't want to give up being the DP, and really wanted to do both. And my feeling was if I was going to succeed as a director, I had to just be a director and give up the safety net of being a cameraman.

The process of working with the second unit director and basically sharing your workload with another director is such an interesting, delicate thing - and entrusting that person with your vision and making sure that you are not adding a completely different aesthetic to the mix that you don't have to contend with in editing.

And one of the funnest things was watching what they did before the director called action and after the director called cut. And they'd keep their hands in the puppets, they'd stay in character, and then they'd start goofing around with each other and be off of script, and it would get quite blue.

I surrender to my directors. I do that because I respect them immensely. In fact, a director's talent scares me. I admit that they're more intelligent than me, and I submit to that, as an assistant director does. Even when I have suggestions to make, I don't state them strongly.

Film is mostly a visual medium, and so the director has much more control in terms of painting pictures and painting a performance. For theater, the director does everything he can and then says, 'Out you go,' and the actors are in charge of that stage every night.

I think I'm an extremely conscientious producer and now equally as a director and it gives me the opportunity to look at the entire movie and really allow the movie to be the creative vision of the actors, the writer and myself, because I'm in charge of it from a producer and a director point of view.

The idea, as a director, is to be able to bring everybody on board and to inspire and give energy to everybody and to explain specific color, specific ambience. I need to be very precise, but I think I'm a better director when I'm more a channeler than a dictator.

I think people really don't understand what a producer does versus what a director does. I mean, the producer is often the person that is on the movie the longest - it's their material that they are then bringing the director onto to bring it to the screen. Are we overlooked? Absolutely.

I don't think it's so important to be a movie director. It's a beautiful profession, but no more than to be a cartoon writer. A very rich cartoon writer. I've done a lot of films, and I know deeply that, in all of cinema, there is no director who is as good as Shakespeare.

I remember my very first audition for a film. I was in Seattle. They were taping the session, and I just went crazy. The director finally said, 'Zoe, what are you doing? The camera's right here. Just talk to me.' And it took that director saying that to me to change everything.

I'm very shy. But as a director and especially a female director, absolutely: How I used to walk on the court is how I walk on set. And I have to - I mean, I'm controlling 150, 200 people, and everything is on me.

There always comes a moment where all the departments in a film need to work together. And if a director, his first assistant director, and cinematographer have a very clear vision, then everybody does work together.

The dream, I think, with any project is it starts with an idea, and then somebody writes it, and the writer hopes that a director comes on and makes this piece of material visual, and both the director and writer hope that they can have actors come in and bring something to it that neither one of them expected, elevating it along the way.

In my case, when you dive into a role, to do well and for you to do well in it, you have to put an enormous amount of faith in the director. But you also have to decide you're so interested in the material, this director, his work, and his process, that you don't care about the outcome.

But things such as 'Harry Potter', all I can do is shape my character, seek the director's approval on that, and basically take it from there. Professor Flitwick in 'Harry Potter', I kind of defined how I saw him from reading the book, and luckily that matched up with the director's vision.