Filmmaker Quotes

I am a filmmaker fanatic. I have never been star-struck by an actor once in my entire life.

I'm not the kind of filmmaker who's going to go from one thing to the next. I often wish I was that filmmaker, but I'm just not.

As a filmmaker, I make the films that I love, that are in my heart. That's what I care about.

As a filmmaker, I've had films that over-achieved and I've had films that under-achieved. You always go in trying to do your very best.

I'm very happy to be involved with great filmmakers.

And as a filmmaker, I'm trying to unhook myself from this idea that unless you have a brilliant, long, enormously lucrative theatrical run, that your movie somehow failed. And I don't believe that.

[John] Hughes is a great loss, I think. He was the first filmmaker that could look at someone who was young without seeing them as being less.

For any filmmaker who has just released a film and who is experiencing some measure of success, the temptation can be great to respond to every screening request that comes in.

As a filmmaker, I want to be known as a pan-African filmmaker and this is because I think that we have more to gain as Africans than as individual countries.

When you are a filmmaker, you need to be rooted, because committing yourself to producing or directing a film is a good three-year process.

I've come to really believe that I have something to offer as a filmmaker, that goes beyond what I had to offer as an actress and maybe this is what I'm meant to do.

I guess it's easier to get things made when you know the story you want to tell, you know the characters you want to play, and you know the filmmakers you want to tell them with.

I think I'm still trying to find my voice as a filmmaker and finding stories to tell.

Other filmmakers make their movies and put them out and that's that. For me, for some odd reason, it goes deeper than that.

I'm always cribbing from real life. I'm not a very creative filmmaker.

The filmmaker is really important to me: it could be their first film; it's not just about their reputation, but I have to really believe in them.

For me, as a documentary filmmaker, I'm interested in telling stories of real people whose experiences tell us something about ourselves or our history, or who we are and our potential.

I'm a documentary filmmaker, so often I'm in the position of talking to people who are sharing stories that are critically important to share, but often difficult to share at the same time.

The worst thing that could happen to a filmmaker is growing up wanting to be a filmmaker.

When I see an amazing play or movie, it inspires me as an actress and a filmmaker.

For me as a filmmaker, I do the projects I'm really excited about.

I've been a documentary photographer for much longer than I have been a filmmaker.

I would give female filmmakers the same advice I’d give any filmmaker; believe in your vision, believe in your team, believe in yourself.

I love directing scenes that I'm not in because suddenly I really feel like a filmmaker which is a different thing.

What you choose to do professionally is a reflection of yourself and I take that seriously as an actor. But even as a filmmaker, I take it even more seriously.

You're not really just a filmmaker that makes a movie good most of the time. It's everybody involved; it's a collective effort.

You would assume that a filmmaker should know how to edit, but pretty much every filmmaker I've worked with doesn't know how to edit.

As a filmmaker you have to keep asking yourself the question are we really going to impress them [audience] either by the wow factor, the intelligence factor, the I didn't see that coming factor?

I had a background in theater as an actor, and then a photographer, and then as an experimental filmmaker and editor.

Filmmakers have to find the right materials to match their [voice].

I consider myself an independent filmmaker.

I've documented a lot of things myself as a filmmaker. If you want a rockumentary, that's in there.

Oh, filmmakers, please don't take my soft book and turn it into a horror, or take my horror and make it soft.

Documentary has been a way for me to establish myself as a filmmaker. It's my way of proving that I have a language, that I can say something through film.

TV [series] is a six-year decision. It's not four or five weeks. If a filmmaker and I don't get along, it's four weeks of your life, so whatever.

Like a painter, a filmmaker should change their format, their support, despite their career they shouldn't be stuck in a system that is stuck in the past.

I think as a filmmaker you try not to have any expectations other than that the film have a fairly substantial beginning, middle and end.

I think all the great studio filmmakers are dead or no longer working. I don't put myself, my friends, and other contemporary filmmakers in their category. I just see us doing some work.

One thing I'm not is a moralistic filmmaker. I'm not trying to tell people what to do, and I'm not trying to lead.

All any filmmaker can do is focus on creating something that has depth and resonance, and then do whatever possible to get it seen by audiences and hope the word spreads.

My advice to any filmmaker would be to figure out what it is that you bring to the table. What makes you different? What is your voice?

I talked with [ Blair Macon] a lot. I always like to come up with it - sometimes the filmmaker is not into it at all.

As a filmmaker I cannot make anything beautiful. I'm Platonic in that sense.

I mean if politics was my main motivation I would be doing politics. But I'm a filmmaker.

For a documentary filmmaker, I do very well.

Filmmakers and artists always thrive during more liberal times.

We are not documentarians, we are filmmakers.

I think as a filmmaker my first contribution would just be to make a good movie that people would love to see and leave the theatre charged, with a sense of excitement.

Right now is a very interesting time because of the digital cameras, and the fact that you can edit anywhere. It's a great time to be a filmmaker, is a great time to be starting off.

I think the purpose of test screenings is different for the studio and for the filmmaker. For the studio, I think they want to know whether the film works or not.