Courtney A. Kemp Quotes

Show-running is a very difficult job that includes so many responsibilities; I'm working with the actors, working with directors, writing, making decisions like, 'What fabric is that sofa gonna be?'

Making a movie is a lot of problem solving.

Directing is a unique endeavor where you are in charge of so many people. As a writer, it is sort of the opposite.

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 the director, it's just a constant stream of meetings where you meet with all of the creatives who make all of the decisions for every part of the episodes. You're also scouting for locations, deciding on the locations, meeting with your first associate director; mine was Jennifer Truelove. She's one of my favorite people on the planet.

Filmmaking is all about people management.

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

I think the toughest thing is to describe what a producer does because they basically do everything. They follow a project from the start through the rest of its life and, along the way, are a part of every single aspect of its growth. It's tremendously enriching, though, because you get to know and live with the movie in its entirety.

TV writing is tricky to navigate because you have so many different personalities - the actors, multiple producers.

It's great being a producer! Why am I wasting my career writing and directing? Those are actual jobs in which you work. Being a producer, it's kind of like you just go to the set, yell at a couple of people, and then stay up all night dancing in nightclubs.

As a director, you have to go in with a really, really, really clear picture of what you want.

When I first found out what a show runner was, I thought it was the strangest job I had heard of in my life.

Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don't talk to anybody.

Production is not an easy game and I would want to be prepared with the right team, script, etc before getting into it.

In order to have the success with 'Empire,' you have to have Fox; you have to have huge P&A. You have to have huge budgets for the show. I'm pretty confident that the budget of 'Empire' is six times what I'm spending on 'Have And Have Nots.'

A producer is supposed to generate an idea for a movie. And then they're supposed to create the team, the group of people that are gonna make this movie. And within that team, the producer has to have a creative vision and a fiscal vision, and they have to adhere to both things.

Making a television show is a difficult, collaborative, creative endeavor, and it really requires everybody to band together and all work together every day.

I think that making a movie is not just making the movie - it is also about having thoughtful ideas and embracing all the aspects of its launch.

A filmmaker has to have faith in talent.

I prefer directing to producing as it is far more satisfying.

When you're writing, in theory, everybody is serving you. When you're directing, you're serving everybody - in the guise of acting like everybody's serving you. But you're really serving the materials. You're serving the actors. You're in charge, but it's not free.

I can lead my team.

If I was to become a manager, I would not want someone else to be signing the players for the team that my job depended on.

The leadership qualities that you have to have to be a producer on a film is something I learned being a captain on the team.

I don't think of myself as a producer. In television, it's part of the business - if you progress and become successful as a writer, you're called a writer-producer. What that means is that you have a lot of say in casting and behind-the-scenes stuff. But I'm just a writer.