QUOTES
“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
“We don’t make movies to make money. We make money to make more movies.”
— Walt Disney
"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
“A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.”
— Orson Welles
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know it well enough.”
— Albert Einstein
"Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly."
— Franz Kafka
“Rely most on your voice and vision rather than craft because craft can be taught.”
— Anne Lai, Sundance Institute
“Craft is what we are expected to know; art is the unexpected use of our craft.”
— Ed Catmull, President @ Pixar
"Creativity is taking unrelated things or ideas and putting them together in a fresh way."
— Howard Scott Warshaw, Game Designer @ Atari
“No is only No for Now.”
In response to getting passes on his scripts.
— Sheldon Candis, Filmmaker
What film should you make?
"The one you're most afraid of."
— Ram Bergman, Producer
“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.”
— David 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
“You don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.”
— Mike Medavoy, Agent & Producer
"As an executive I often find myself servicing the nostalgia of my bosses."
— Zach Hamby, Director of Development @ Warner Bros.
“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, Filmmaker
“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 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
“Be emotionally invested—not emotionally attached.”
Advice for writing your screenplays.
— Scott Carr, Talent Manager
“Directing for Television is like being a substitute teacher.”
— Charles Stone III, Director
“The poster is like a front door to a house.”
— Sebastian Twardosz, Filmmaker
“You have to look at everything as being transactional.”
— Matt Fisch, Writer
“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
“Don’t ever chase money. Chase your dreams. Do what you love.”
— Tom DeSanto, Producer & Screenwriter
“Bad movies get made because of good relationships.”
— Tom DeSanto, Producer & Screenwriter
“There’s creativity but no control.”
In reference to working on Big IP like Kong or Godzilla.
— Max Borenstein, Screenwriter
“Don’t reach up. Reach OUT.”
— Daniel Noah, Filmmaker
"Time wasn't wasted at Atari. Engineers were wasted at Atari."
— Howard Scott Warshaw, Game Designer @ Atari
“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, Movie Mogul
"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