Walter Murch Quotes

I love editing. It's one of my favorite parts about filmmaking.

The first movies were made by technicians building their own cameras. Movies became an art when technicians worked on the technique and artists took care of the content.

There's a lot of research and time that goes into my shoots. I spend weeks on them, even for one picture.

I remember walking into the editing room when I was a junior in college, and I watched the guy make cuts, and I didn't know what the hell was going on. He was just putting these shots together and telling the story, and it was amazing.

There are constant challenges in the drawing process, especially in a period piece, and therein lay the fun.

Things have to hit for the moment. That's one of the reasons I'm into video; the image has to hit immediately. I adore video and the whole cutting up of it.

I was fascinated by the effects that could be achieved by editing. The cutting room became a magic workshop for me.

I doubt Picasso ever painted a picture in an hour, he took his time, looked at every detail and made sure it was perfect.

I make films about stories that I get interested in.

Moviemaking is a dirty, tiring affair. The joy comes from the possibility to be free on set and really let loose.

I don't think enough directors know enough about editing.

Visually, I'm always considering shots and composition quite a lot, and I love putting art into films, and I do a lot of the art.

The creative process for a musician is very different than for a filmmaker. I have an idea, and I can pretty much execute it.

I work on my technique, but when I do a video, I want people to be amazed by the speed or the power. The casual fans don't care if your hands are up or your hands are down.

I've always believed that you have to have the skills before you destroy the skills. If you want to be crude, be crude, but don't be crude because you don't know how to do it, because you're not perfect at drawing and pattern-cutting.

I became passionate about filmmaking. The thrill to make something out of nothing and to go out there to see whether it will work or not attracted me.

In order to make a film, you have to operate on many different levels, making all these different forms of expression converse, and so I just followed that intuition.

I can access footage much quicker, yes. But in terms of living with a film and knowing what's right, digital doesn't do that for you.

Clarity is important. Part of what I'm trying to do with some of these pictures is eliminate as much of the potential, as many kind of readings as people might want to make, as possible.

It's pretty amazing to see something in your head and write it down, go out and shoot it, then see it on the big screen. It's a pretty amazing feeling.

I don't make projects; I make films.

I started writing screenplays myself and eventually directing.

When you're trying to make a film, you're trying to find a way to love your subject, and you want your audience to love your subject.

I think you can make a gorgeous movie on any piece of equipment. Look at 'Tangerine,' which is a beautiful movie shot on an iPhone. You see so many movies that are impeccably shot but are vapid, and there's no audience for that except for other cinematographers who just like to watch two-hour-long music videos.

When I did the first edit of Les plages, it was very dry and very square in a way. I was just saying the minimum. I said, Well, if this is the minimum, I don't make it. So I tried to make it more refined. I tried to find images, allegorical images, that I could use to express things that I didn't want to say or didn't want to show or I was not able to find how to show.