Agnes Bruckner Quotes

A big part of the job of being a showrunner is, in my way of thinking, being a good communicator because there's really no other way to have hope for getting what you want, at the end of the day.

The producer, in effect, has to work as a translator. You form a very tight relationship with the director and writer from the beginning, and then you are constantly communicating to the various people that begin to come into the process, as you are trying to manage to hold on to a vision that needs to be communicated over a long period of time.

As a director, my job is to protect. I protect scripts, actors, cameramen, designers.

I think a good director is a good listener.

Usually in features, I'm the lead. I consider the director the captain, but I consider myself the first mate, and it's up to me to keep in contact with the heart of the crew.

Directing takes a lot of time.

The most important thing for a director is being able to communicate.

There is an isolated experience to being a director. It's very communal because there's a crew, but it's only you. You're the one on the hook.

I admire directors so much, I find them incredible: they manage such a huge number of people of different characters, think of the money involved.

As a director, I love being able to really be a contributing factor to the overall vision of a project.

I think, at the end of the day, filmmaking is a team, but eventually there's got to be a captain.

As a director, you have to understand what is happening - if I don't understand it, you can't make changes.

With film, I have to be a team player; it's a whole different thing. I can't just be a one-man show. I have to learn how to use people to the best of their ability and motivate them to be as passionate about the project as I am.

Your own barometer is all you have to go by, and often what makes a good director is knowing when not to say something. On occasions you can find yourself on a film set where the person who is wearing the director's hat is only trying to justify his position.

I believe that, by directing, it makes me a better executive as well.

A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

That's what I learned most about directing on my own - you've got to build a family, a filmmaking family.

The idea, as a director, is to be able to bring everybody on board and to inspire and give energy to everybody and to explain specific color, specific ambience. I need to be very precise, but I think I'm a better director when I'm more a channeler than a dictator.

I think there is more cohesion when you have one director on set.

I would say that the energy on set is always the energy of the director because he's the boss.

I was constantly reading books about how to direct, and asking directors, 'How do you do it?' And when I finally actually started doing the work, it seemed like you have to be decisive and have an opinion. But also you have to be a good collaborator and hire the right people to shore up whatever your skill set is.

I was a pretty good coach and working with marketing was like coaching.

Collaboration is just, really, a group of people getting in a room with their eye on a very similar prize and wanting to come out with the same show. The director, ultimately, is the guy in front of whom the buck stops. So, he has to have the courage to prevail. But, he has got to have a huge amount of respect for his collaborators.

The smartest thing a director can do is surround himself with really good people.

A good director has to be a captain - he has to work with a lot of people every day.