Harold Ramis Quotes

Usually, if you've got a great script, everything falls into place.

As a director, you want to work with great writers.

Films are a long process and the script is the first part.

Bill Condon, I must say, may have been one of the best professional experiences of my life, collaborating with him. He, himself, is an Academy Award winning screenwriter. He is a storyteller first and foremost, so we speak the same language. We approach things always from the story.

Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.

All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.

Getting your screenplay right is the most important thing you'll ever do on your film.

I think the community that's created within a writers' room is a very interesting topic.

In the case of 'Blood Stone,' the producers, EON, Michael Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, David Wilson and Gregg Wilson, had an idea for a story and had a lot of it done. And I came in, worked with them, fleshed it out.

The filmmaking process is a team effort. A screenwriter cannot possibly do exactly what he wants as if he was writing a novel.

For me the writing, when I'm going to direct it myself, is really just the first draft, and I don't change it very much; I only change it on average about two lines per movie.

Alexander Payne's very specific. His scripts are always complete when you start working on them.

I always write the script by myself.

The script for 'Thirteen' is tight, and not because of the now-famous six day writing spree, but more because it started out as 15 pages longer.

I think it's always good for the author to stay a good cattle prod's distance from the actual moviemaking.

The hardest single thing you do is get the bloody screenplay right.

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.

I have always thought if you are going to make a film, it's much better to have an original script that will play to film's strengths.

I find that with any good run on a show with good writers, they put something on paper, and you put something back on film, and that affects what they put on the paper the next time.

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.

I wrote the screenplay for 'This Is Where I Leave You' - all 40 drafts of it.

I want to write a film. I need to think of the right idea and focus on that; I love writing.

Character is character and voice is voice, which translates nicely from writing novels to writing TV. But the process is different. You have a writer's room, people pitch you jokes and you collaborate.

Since I began making movies, I've always looked for screenwriters instead of going through the long and painful process of writing.

There comes a time as you continue to write and work on scripts and screenplays where you realize that you have opinions about the next step of the process, and you kind of want more control over the translation from page to screen.