pearls of wisdom
“This is insane, I mean you go to a university to learn how to make movies?”
When he first discovered the USC film school.
– George Lucas
“When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, ‘No, I went to films.’”
– Quentin Tarantino
“Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.
– George Lucas
"Cinema is an unhappy art as it depends on money."
– Andrei Tarkovsky
"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them."
— Walt Disney.
"You have to want to make films so badly you could kill."
— Francis Ford Coppola
“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
– Albert Einstein
“Perfect is the enemy of good.”
– Voltaire
“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”
– Orson Welles, filmmaker
“A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.”
– Orson Welles, filmmaker
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know it well enough.”
– Albert Einstein
“Die Hard is an action film about a guy trying to save his marriage.”
– Carl Ellsworth, screenwriter
“I don’t have a magic wand—I have a phone.”
– Dave Boxerbaum, agent @ Verve
“We’re not in the filmmaking business. We’re in the marketing business.”
In response to what’s wrong with Hollywood. – JC Spink, producer
“Repetition is Bankable.”
– Dina Kuperstock, agent @ CAA
“CAA is an ecosphere of specialists in all facets of the entertainment industry”
– Dina Kuperstock, agent @ CAA
“It’s not a marriage. It’s dating.”
In response to your relationship with your agent or manager.
– John Swetnam, writer/director
“You don’t get in a car and randomly start driving.”
In response to the three-act structure. – Alex Litvak, screenwriter
“You’re not reinventing the wheel—you’re putting a fresh tire on it.”
– Alex Litvak, screenwriter
“We’re basically a lot like those VIP 'tasters' in what we do for a living.
Unfortunately the scripts we read are usually like poison.”
– Adam Novack, head of the story dept. @ WME
“Agents are not good at starting fires but we’re great at spreading them. We just need something to spark it.” – Rob Lazar, agent & manager
“It’s not fast-talking. It’s fast-moving.”
– Youssef Delara, filmmaker
“No is only No for Now.”
In response to getting passes on his scripts. – Sheldon Candis, filmmaker
“Be emotionally invested—not emotionally attached.”
Advice for writing your screenplays. – Scott Carr, manager
“Everyone has to find their lane in this business.”
– Cale Boyter, producer & studio executive
“Directing for Television is like being a substitute teacher.”
– Charles Stone III, director
“The poster is like a front door to a house.”
– Chadney Cooles, indie filmmaker
“You have to look at everything as being transactional.”
– Matt Fisch, writer
“Rely most on your voice and vision rather than craft because craft can be taught.”
– Anne Lai, Sundance Institute
“It’s not the note. It’s the reason for the note.”
– Matthew Sand, screenwriter
“Sell me on why you care.”
– Matthew Sand, screenwriter
“To forget I’m reading a script.”
In response to what she’s looking for in a script. – Kerry Ehrin, screenwriter/showrunner
“Making a movie is like a school of fish.”
– Shaked Berenson, producer
“Craft is what we are expected to know; art is the unexpected use of our craft.”
– Ed Catmull, president of Pixar
“Don’t ever chase money. Chase your dreams. Do what you love.”
– Tom DeSanto, producer & screenwriter
“There’s creativity but no control.”
In reference to working on Big IP like Kong or Godzilla. – Max Borenstein, screenwriter
“I don’t want any ‘Yes-Men’ around me.
I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their job.”
— Samuel Goldwyn, famed producer & movie mogul
“Don’t reach up. Reach OUT.”
– Daniel Noah, filmmaker
"I made essentially a mistake staying in movies... but it's a mistake I can't regret because it's like saying, ‘I shouldn't have stayed married to that woman, but I did because I love her.’ I would have been more successful if I'd left movies immediately. Stayed in the theater, gone into politics, written--anything. I've wasted the greater part of my life looking for money, and trying to get along... trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paint box which is a movie. And I've spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with a movie. It's about 2% movie making and 98% hustling.
It's no way to spend a life.”
– Orson Welles, filmmaker