Joshua Oppenheimer Quotes

There are times when I'm driving home after a day's shooting, thinking to myself, That scene would've been so much better if I had written it out.

Eventually, I would love to direct, but not anytime soon. I just love the storytelling aspect.

The experience of an actual film from idea to screen will teach me more than most books and lectures.

Writing is fantasizing about what your film will be like. Shooting is reality. And the post-production is recovering the idea you had.

I have stories that I'd like to maybe one day consider directing, but you need a lot of time to write and put it together.

The only way you can learn about making films is by making them, by putting your stamp on the thing.

My M.F.A was in directing, and all the films I've made, for film school and after, I've written, directed and shot.

I don't think people understand what it takes to make a movie unless they've experienced it themselves or been around it. It's a miracle every time you make a movie, and a bigger miracle if it turns out well.

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'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.

Film, for me, is in two stages. One is when I write the script more or less on my own - that's the nice bit. And then comes for me the unpleasant bit when they all go off, 100 people - actors and camera people and film and sound - and I stay away. When they go into the editing room, I come in again, and that's the bit I like.

There's some things that you learn as you're shooting, and as you're editing that are key, because when you start you don't have the brain that can finish it. You don't really know what it is, and that's the key job; figuring out what you actually have, not what you're dreaming of having.

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

I started making music videos in my twenties and made my first feature, 'Guncrazy,' at 29. I then spent the greater part of my thirties directing features.

I co-wrote and produced 'Sticky Fingers' with Catlin Adams, who directed it. I learned a lot writing and producing with Cat. I spent as much time as I could in the cutting room with her. All the producing experience that I had helped.

Making films has got to be one of the hardest endeavors known to humankind.

I'm trying to make as many films as I can.

I love directing more than anything in the world, and I love being in the editing room. I love cutting. When I'm shooting, I cut it in my head anyway. That's not to say that it always turns out that way, but you have a sense when you're composing a sequence or a scene how you want it to look anyway.

It's sort of one ongoing process where writing ends and directing starts.

When you create a movie, you create something in your image.

When you're a filmmaker you're part of a very expensive art form.

I like acting, but I like filmmaking better. I went to film school. I want to make films.

I've directed independent film.

I got a job as an assistant film editor, which lasted for a few years, but I found writing incredibly difficult, and I thought, 'How am I going to make a film if I can't write?' I didn't really comprehend that someone else would do that bit.

The experience of making a movie is far removed from watching the end result. It's exciting, but it still makes me squirm.