Thelma Schoonmaker Quotes

When we were shooting the movie, and of course in the editing room we had to make choices, but the shots fall almost exactly where we thought they would. They're not about content; they're never meant to be about what just happened. There's that weird phenomenon where the more you like a movie the more your mind wanders and goes all over the place.

Once I'm in the editing room, forget about what I intended to shoot. I take a cold, hard look at what I really did shoot, and then I edit that because, if you try to edit what you intended and you missed somewhere, that will show up.

I wrote 'All is Lost' while editing 'Margin Call'. I did that long before I knew if I was ever going to get to make another movie.

Particularly in the final stages I always find that I'm rushed. It's dangerous when you're rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting.

There's always a certain amount of camera improvisation.

I just wanted to make sure that what I write is what appears on screen, to not have some idiot change it on its way to the screen.

You know, making a movie is a collaborative effort and sometimes all the ingredients don't work out. I know that every now and again I am going to make a movie that won't work.

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

I feel like the great filmmakers who have a true voice, yeah they take the notes, they understand the notes, but it's really about the notes underneath the notes. When you do a test screening and somebody says, 'Well, I didn't like the love story,' but it was probably just too long.

If Steven Spielberg brought me a movie four hours long and said, 'It has to go out this way,' I guarantee you that's the way it would go out.

And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before.

In standup, it's just you. You're your own writer, your own critic, your own director, and it's never the same. You really don't always have it down. Your continue to learn, you continue to risk, and I really love it.

I used to sit on the editing table to see where I may have gone wrong because after editing, only the good parts go on screen.

'Writing' is the wrong way to describe what happens to words in a movie. First, you put down words. Then you rehearse them with actors. Then you shoot the words. Then you edit them. You cut a lot of them, you fudge them, you make up new ones in voice-over. Then you cut it and throw it all away.

Every one of our films, when we start off, they suck... our job is to take it from something that sucks to something that doesn't suck. That's the hard part.

I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.

You stay with the foundation and then you just try different things because you don't know how the director will cut it and you want to give him, what will work, and you want to give him some options, give yourself some options, discover some things when you start to play. That's what we do; we get paid to play.

In editing, you really face what the movie is. When you shoot it, you have this illusion that you're making the masterpieces that you're inspired by. But when you finally edit the movie, the movie is just a movie, so there is always a hint of disappointment, particularly when you see your first cut.

I like to use a bit of chaos when I shoot. I think it may be something from the way I shot my first film - I was very scared, of course, and I prepared everything, I wanted to make sure that the characters did the right thing at the right time on the storyboard. But then I realised that in life, there is so much more than what you can predict or write in advance, that when you shoot the story, it's good to leave some gaps where you lose control. I think this combination of chaos and organisation gives a kind of quality.

I'm too big a fan of rhythm and editing. I'd much rather my editing be brave than my shooting.

I always thought the editor should cut the film and so I'll come in and look at the movie. Just because that's the only way I can really see the ideas of the editor, it's really working together. Yes it's a hierarchy, yes I'm the boss, but I like to see and to think about the idea, and it's about us asking, 'do we have to say that?' and, 'how do we make it there?' So it's advising the editor, it's very give and take, it's very free, but in the end, it's wonderful once you get through the first couple of cuts.

It's like you might have some great scene that you love but for some reason - and you can't necessarily put your finger on it - the movie's not working or it seems slow or ponderous in some way, and even though it has your favorite scene in there, actually the favorite scene is the culprit. That's the painful thing about editing, is trying to locate those things that are holding the movie back and then having the guts to cut them. And it is painful to do it.

I may film scenes I had no intention of filming; things suggest themselves on location, and we improvise. I try not to think about it too much. Then, in the cutting room, I take the film and start to put it together, and only then do I begin to get an idea of what it is about.

When you're in the editing process, you try different things and you get creative ideas.

When I'm editing my work, I'm looking for everything to fit, to feel seamless, for every detail or line of dialogue or scene to feel necessary and organic. I approach the writing of others in much the same way while always working to preserve the writer's voice. To allow myself to be vulnerable on the page, I tell myself no one is going to read my work. There's no way I could put myself out there otherwise.