Courtney Gains Quotes

I like doing family films.

A movie shoots six months for two hours of film.

Major differences in projects happen due to budget, director's styles, and genre of script, not industry.

Just getting movies made is difficult because it takes a lot of money; I mean, it costs more money to make one movie than most bands will spend on every single record of their entire career; it's a huge undertaking.

Whenever I hear the narration for a new film, I have this process back home where my mother reads all my scripts.

As soon as I finished film school I was thinking about, how do I get to feature films? It took about eight years, and I'm still working. Feature films was not the end goal. Feature films was one of the stages. Getting to the point of the Coen brothers or Tarantino, where you're writing your own material and have the budget to do it properly, that's the end goal, and I'm close to that.

A feature film is an expansion of budget, stress, story, hours, time, workload, everything.

Usually, the biggest hang-up is the script. You could have a script done in six months that you love, or it could be like The Fantastic Four it's been almost 10 years.

Film is a collaborative business: bend over.

When you're dealing with Hollywood people, it creates a tight, tense atmosphere through the whole thing. And I don't like to work in that kind of atmosphere. I like to make my movies in a kind of relaxed atmosphere.

Very often on films, even without a producer credit, I'll be involved, very early on. I want to be there as the thing is taking shape.

When you add up the minutes you spend actually making a movie - the amount of time you spend actually doing your thing in front of a camera - it just isn't that much. But it's everything.

Films have been my only passion in life. I have always been proud of making films and will continue taking pride in all my films. I have never made a movie I have not believed in. However, though I love all my films, one tends to get attached to films that do well. But I do not have any regrets about making films that did not really do well at the box office.

If you're going to break cinema, film, and movies apart, very rarely to you get the opportunity to even think that you've been a part of cinema.

While they'd be setting up shots, suddenly, there were 17 make-up chicks, just listening to Marlon telling these amazing stories that were probably lies. He was a fascinating individual. I learned a lot from him.

Most people don't really understand what it takes to get a film made, and the struggles. I think anyone who makes a film goes through their own set of struggles. People go to extraordinary lengths to get films made. I hope it's of interest to people. One would think that it would be very easy, with an iconic character like James Bond, to keep making the films, but it hasn't been. But, it sure has been entertaining and rewarding.

I've worked in the movie business for many, many years, where you have lots of days and lots of money. It's really mainly about time. We always try to conceive all of our action from a place of, "What can we shoot that looks fantastic?," rather than trying to do the kinds of thing that you would be able to accomplish in a movie.

I've always loved film more than theater, and film may be more closely related to making a record because you have that ability to go in and do your work and have no judgment around it, and feel honest. Then, much later, it's presented to people. But in theater, people come backstage after a performance and you're about to do the same play again the next night, and people say, "Well, I didn't really believe that emotion" or whatever. It's really hard for me, I like to be closed up and just do the work.

With directing, you have to wake up early, which stinks, but you get to hang out with the crew, you're laughing, you're active, and you're working with the actors. It's just more fun than writing. Writing is very hard.

Kevin Feige and I have very smart people who work for us, who make sure that we see everything. And that we actually see everything. They see everything, tell us about it, we see it. You have to have people who work with you, who say 'you have to look at this film'. And then you look at it. You really have to look at it. You have to look at movies all the time.

Basically, actors arrive in a bubble. They have a little sealed bubble around them and it's basically [comprised of] their agents, their last film, their next film, their press agent, and their per diems - all these things, they cocoon themselves with and you have to puncture that bubble on each of them to make them be in your film.

I always find film-making a pleasurable experience.

I think I'll try to keep working in film for a little bit. There's something still kind of magical about it, that I don't want to let go of.

It's tough to get any film made, even if you're Martin Scorsese. It's just hard to get films made.

You have to be a pretty miserable person to not enjoy making movies. It's something I always dreamed about. I do not take it for granted.