Filmmaker Quotes

• A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.

  Jean-Luc Godard

  Movie, Order, Should Have

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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  Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Cameras, Sound, Ridiculous

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness.

  Frank Capra

  Movie, Inspiring, Sin

  Recalled on his death in People, 16 Sep 1991.

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• Pain is temporary, film is forever.

  Michael J. Fox

  Funny, Movie, Pain

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• Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you're a director. Everything after that you're just negotiating your budget and your fee.

  James Cameron

  Inspirational, Motivational, Friends

  James Cameron, Brent Dunham (2012). “James Cameron: Interviews”, p.117, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.

  Walt Disney

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• My three Ps: passion, patience, perseverance. You have to do this if you've got to be a filmmaker.

  Robert Wise

  Patience, Perseverance, Passion

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• Editing is not merely a method of the junction of separate scenes or pieces, but is a method that controls the 'psychological guidance' of the spectator.

  Vsevolod Pudovkin

  Movie, Editing, Directors

  "Watch: 5 Master Editing Techniques That Appear in Everything From ‘Psycho’ to ‘Hugo’" by Casey Cipriani, www.indiewire.com. October 9, 2013.

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• No saint, no pope, no general, no sultan, has ever had the power that a filmmaker has; the power to talk to hundreds of millions of people for two hours in the dark.

  Frank Capra

  Dark, Two, People

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• A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Movie, Film Directing, Independent Filmmaking

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it's probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.

  Banksy

  Movie, Inspiring, World

  "Banksy Breaks His Silence on ‘Exit Through The Gift Shop’; Hints at Next Film" by Jordan Raup, thefilmstage.com. December 21, 2010.

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• Most independent filmmakers in Britain and North America work for commercial crews and then have their own projects when they've got enough money saved up to do so.

  Ann Macbeth

  Independent, America, Enough

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• I'd made these experimental films but I thought the major chore of a filmmaker was to relate to actors.

  Bill Forsyth

  Actors, Film, Made

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• Casting is 65 percent of directing.

  John Frankenheimer

  Movie, Inspiring, Casting

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• The terrorists who committed the 2003 Istanbul attacks were locals, that is, Turks. And when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in the Netherlands last year, the murderer and his supporters were also part of the Muslim community.

  Otto Schily

  Istanbul, Years, Community

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• Many filmmakers pretend that they never see anything, which has always seemed odd to me.

  Jacques Rivette

  Odd

  "Tributes to French New Wave Master Jacques Rivette, Dead at 87" by Sam Adams, www.indiewire.com. January 29, 2016.

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• In most films music is brought in at the end, after the picture is more or less locked, to amplify the emotions the filmmaker wants you to feel.

  Ken Burns

  Film Music, Amplify, Want

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• We know as filmmakers where you draw the line.

  Jerry Bruckheimer

  Lines, Draws, Knows

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• Film is a battleground.

  Samuel Fuller

  Film, Battleground

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I don't think people have been able to deal with the fact that African American filmmakers can make movies about life and relationships.

  Tim Robbins

  Thinking, People, African American

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• I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.

  Theodore Bikel

  Fear, Giving, Wonder

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• I steal from every movie ever made.

  Quentin Tarantino

  Stealing, Made, Movie Director

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• When you start out as a filmmaker, you do parodies, because you can't really compete on a studio level.

  Bill Paxton

  Movie, Inspiring, Competition

  "Bill Paxton - No more days of 'Hey, aren't you Chet?'". Interview with Jonathan Litt, tech.mit.edu. May 02, 1997.

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• I think one of the privileges of being a filmmaker is the opportunity to remain a kind of perpetual student.

  Edward Zwick

  Movie, Inspiring, Thinking

  "Leonardo DiCaprio & Ed Zwick for “Blood Diamond”". Interview with Garth Franklin, www.darkhorizons.com. December 7, 2006.

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• The more unique your film is and unusual it is and difficult it is, the harder it is to get it financed. That's why a lot of good filmmakers are doing television. They do HBO movies.

  David Cronenberg

  Unique, Hbo, Television

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