Jesse Ball Quotes

Netflix is amazing 'cause they trust the creator to do their job, and they trust us to do our job. They're really smart and just let us do our thing and deliver a great job.

I trust every lead in every department. All of the teams are phenomenal artists. All I need to tell them is why to do something, not how to do something.

When I work, I'm the actor. I'm going to do my job. I'm not going to direct the movie. If I wanted to direct it, I would direct it. I wanted J.J. Abrams to direct Mission: Impossible. I work with people that I respect. I expect them to do their jobs, and I will do mine. And I am there as a producer to help in any way, but no one makes a movie by themselves. It's a collaboration.

One of the things I'm adamant about as a bandleader is not micromanaging. I'm an advocate for the concept of allowing everyone to be fully vested in what they're doing, so everyone contributes whatever they're inspired to contribute.

I'm like a point guard. Barack is about ideas and questions, and I don't have all the answers. He trusts me to pass the ball to others to give him points of view.

Creating a flexible working culture is about trust. How much can your employees rely on each other to get the job done without the benefit of supervision?

If you don't take it for granted that the other man will do his job, you're not an executive.

Sharing the same vision for what's on the page is always a good idea. The director's job is to establish what that is and make sure that everyone sticks to it when it comes down to actually executing it.

I learned that as a director, you're around all these talented people, so you have this window that all these really good ideas can come in to help your movie, so you're crazy to close them. You need to be inspiring people, engaging people. There are lots of people who are really good at their jobs but might not know or feel like they want to come up to people and get them to participate and want to do their best.

Everybody's on their toes and focused on what we're about to do, and then there's this moment where you relax because you see that everybody is there to do the best that they can. Everyone opens up to one another right away. That's a terrific thing. I love that about actors. They know how personal this job is.

Some directors are like it's their... nothing can change, nothing can move. I like collaborating, even when an extra has an idea, I like to bring to really have collaboration.

I'm much more collaborative than I probably was when I was first starting, much more willing to say, "I don't know the answer to that." I have really talented people and let them do their jobs and not try to control everything as much as I did when I was starting. I was a bit more insecure.

I think great directors really respect their actors and vice versa. That mutual respect makes the job fun instead of anything but.

In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles.

It's true that I don't think I'd be a good director. If I were a director, I'd try to hire the best people I could and then leave them alone. I don't know much about cameras or lighting, so I'd make sure that I had a really good cameraman who understood lenses and lighting, and I say to him, "This is the scene we have to shoot and this is what I think it should be, you go do it." Same with actors. But really, very good directors who know everything do basically the same thing. They hire you and then they leave you alone.

So we [with Kate DiCamillo] would act them out, we would toss ideas back and forth, we would laugh, we would argue. Sometimes it went really well, sometimes it was such a pain in the ass. Our other rule was that we wouldn't work on it at all when we weren't in the other's presence. It was really hard not to do that. We'd start going on email back and forth, 'What do you think about this, what do you think about that?' But, no, no, no, it had to be live. So we forced ourselves not to look at it except during those two-hour stretches when we were actually with each other.

You can't get it all done yourself. The best leaders are not afraid of picking people who are better than they are and who may one day replace them.

I'm a guy that after having experience in radio and stuff, if I can trust the people I'm working with, I get a real thrill with working with other people who are good at what they do.

I've learned that if you can keep it calm and keep it fun and loose, then that allows for ideas from the crew. I don't care where an idea comes from, whether it's the crew or my producer or the actors or anybody. I just want it to be fun, and if that's the case, then I think you make a better movie.

We get a better book when everyone's allowed to do their best work on it. I don't want to prevent anybody from bringing their ideas to a project.

I've never had any big ideas about being the solo.

The studio's a collaborative environment. I just try to let people bring their own ideas to the songs and see what happens.

I never go on a movie set as the star. I always go as the guy who just does his job, like the electrician does his job and the hairdresser does her job. Let's all work together and make this happen, rather than have the star treatment. I don't do that.

The more confident you are, the more you can let go and believe that the people you've chosen to be in your circle are able to do what they say they're going to do and what they're really good at. It has made me a better band member, too.