Wim Wenders Quotes

Editing is the only process. The shooting is the pleasant work. The editing makes the movie, so I spend all my life in editing.

I directed a movie and now, I'm going to do the editing.

Historically, filmmakers always fall in love with every frame, but now that even neophytes are given final cut, this love affair carries with it serious economic implications.

The bottom line is that your performance is made in the editing room.

Same thing with film, by the time you've finished shooting and you've really been into everything, you've touched up everything in the editing room. You've gone in there and taken little bits from everything.

I have no control over a film. I don't know what will be left on the cutting floor.

David and I got cut out the editing process on that. We were able to affect it more than not. We sent in our notes, we were able to see cuts. We weren't allowed to see dailies and we weren't allowed to sit in the editing room and just work.

The film is made in the editing room. The shooting of the film is about shopping, almost. It's like going to get all the ingredients together, and you've got to make sure before you leave the store that you got all the ingredients. And then you take those ingredients and you can make a good cake - or not.

Four months of preparation and about 12 hours of shooting turned into about 30 seconds of screen time.

Nothing is cut while I'm shooting. I edit between nine months and a year, and usually have around 80 hours of footage I have to get down to an 82-minute movie.

I still direct my own videos.

It's wonderful to work on footage by someone who understands how to get it to cut right, which a lot of directors don't.

I always see the filming as basically going to the grocery store and buying a bunch of ingredients and that's about as far from having a dinner as you can possibly be. Then editing is the cooking, the preparation of the meal and if you don't edit it you've just got a pile of raw meat.

My first cut is always pretty similar to the final cut.

There's a film you write, there's a film you shoot, and there's a film that you cut - and they're all different.

I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit.

Whenever I'm not shooting, I'm in the editing room with my footage. While the crew is taking 15 minutes to an hour to set up the next shot, I'm behind the Avid, putting the flick together.

With film, so much is in the director's hands. Once something is cut together - unless you're in the editing room - you don't really remember what the alternatives are.

Usually you always see first cut is an extended version, because it's basically everything you shot, and you have that version and then you start cutting stuff out.

There's so little difference between television and features as far as you make the film. I mean, you have less money and it's a little quicker, but the concept is all on television.

I have an amazing team; I have amazing producers; I have amazing writers, but at the end of it, it's me making the decisions on the writing, the tone, the editing.

I like pre-production and post the best. I don't like shooting at all. I find it grueling and tough, but I love post and the whole process of seeing the film finally come together. You start ironing out all the rough spots, and the really bad bits you just throw away. So from day one of post to the last day, you see nothing but improvements.

The filmmakers always have a great level of control.

Nobody ever starts out to make a mediocre, commercial film. You always think it's going to be something. And then, once you're done with your shooting, you have no control. You're just done, as an actor.

Consistency is very important when you're making films.