John Gourley Quotes

A good script and a good brief from the director is enough to let me know what is expected of me.

Technically, maybe I learned most of all from George Stevens, and among his movies I learned the most from 'A Place in the Sun.' It's a lesson in moviemaking.

I have considered the directing, actually. Not so much the writing. That is not really interesting, but the directing is really interesting to me.

I have always believed that directing a film is like telling a story. You have to tell it well so that it is appreciated.

As the director of a film, as the story teller, you have to keep your voice alive.

When I'm writing film music, I feel like I'm more a filmmaker than a composer. It's more about what the film needs. I'm basically part of the team that's creating a film, and the music is a very important part, but it's just one part of many.

Music is a big part of the director's life; Ms. Coppola's previous feature, a screen adaptation of 'The Virgin Suicides,' was informed more substantially by the score by the group Air than by the narrative.

Godzilla' took two months because it required a two-hour-plus score. 'Imitation Game' was three weeks.

I was doing well in TV as a freelance cameraman, but it wasn't the direction I wanted to go in. I directed videos and tried to put something cinematic in every one. Dialogue, action sequences, helicopter, Steadicam.

Directing is a tremendous art.

In the old days, before there was such a thing as film schools, directors learned the camera by watching other directors, and learning from their own dailies, and listening to the cameraman, and seeing what would work. Some of those guys could cut their movies in their head.

In my opinion, the motion picture is the greatest medium of expression ever invented. It embraces all the other arts. The films that have the greatest unity, the greatest overall strength, and give the most satisfaction to the viewer, have been those in which a guiding hand was imposed in every section of the film's many divisions.

So film music is something I absolutely wanna get involved in.

I'm not afraid of being thought of as someone who is associated with film music. Why not? If it's a good song, what does it matter?

I discovered that, in order to write a magnificent piece, you should shoot the images because once you are filming, you are writing the script in your mind.

You can have music and it will stand alone by itself, but you can't have a movie without it.

When I write a screenplay, and when I direct, I always pull lines out.

Most screenplays depend primarily on the vision of a director.

When you make a movie, you do it so piecemeal. You're doing it, not only scene by scene, out of order, but shot by shot, line by line. And there's this idea that the director has the whole thing in his or her head and they're going to somehow weave it all together in the end.

I think you cannot make films without choosing everything.

Making a movie and not directing the little moments is like drinking a soda and leaving the little slurp puddle for someone else.

Normally, when people compose for film, you give them the film, and they look at it, and they compose it.

Music is half the film.

I wouldn't mind doing a soundtrack someday.

I teach film directing, inasmuch as you can. It's not really possible to teach film direction, but I sit there as a sort of testimony of experience and know-how, I suppose.