Debbie Allen Quotes

Someone who directs a film, they have to see the overall picture, and they have to get the best performances out of the actors.

As far as pacing the shoot is concerned, I know when I've got it. I don't think there's any reason to take ten takes unless you need them.

I feel like I'm a filmmaker; I don't feel I need to yell action and cut.

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

To me, the director is the most important, rather than the story.

Film is shot in fragments, and the same moments can be shot again and again until the director is satisfied.

The director is the only person on the set who has seen the film. Your job as a director is to show up every day and know where everything will fit into the film.

The director is the channel through which a motion picture reaches the screen.

I've been on so many movies. Generally, I haven't gotten to be on the ground level. As of two years ago, in 'Dear John,' I got to really be on the ground floor. I wasn't a producer. I felt like I put the work in, and I did have a lot of sway on what got fixed, reshoots, so on and so forth. It felt really good.

To have someone like Clint Eastwood come along and shoot your first draft as written is just any screenwriter's dream. And Clint is very straightforward. If it's good enough to get his attention, it's good enough to produce.

With a film, you try to keep your vision in it. I think with 'The American' and 'Control' I managed to do that.

Movies are great fun and wonderful when they're good. But you never get to see them till six months after they're finished. So you never get a sense of whether they're really well liked or how good they are. And you don't really know what the finished product is going to be like, because it's a director's medium.

I have definitely been curious and involved in the process; even as a young actor. I was always looking at where the camera was, what story it was telling. And as my experience grew, I wanted to know even more.

On Belle de Jour, the producer was very protective. It was very hard for me.

By the first week of shooting, you know exactly where your film is heading based on the psychology of your director.

Although filmmaking is collaborative and involves trust, ultimately it is the director who holds the whole picture together in their head.

There are only so many movies you can direct. And yet there are movies that I want to make sure make it to the screen in as honest a way as possible.

I don't shoot movies quickly because I get a lot of coverage and a lot of angles, so we have all the pieces in the editing. I do a lot of takes, but it's because I'm looking for something.

As a producer you have creative control, and that's what is so exciting about it. At the end of the day, if you have made a film it's totally your responsibility, and if it works it's your responsibility and if it doesn't it's also your responsibility.

Once you become a producer, you're really selling something. It is a control issue, because you don't really know how it's going to pan out, but the creative control makes it work it.

As a producer, I learned not to declare anything about a movie I'm not directing.

When you write and direct your own film, you basically know exactly what you want. Or you hope to. For the studio, it actually can make life a little easier, because if you have a bunch of questions, they only need to call one person.

You get some directors, and I can never understand it - there's a thing they call the 'video village' where all the monitors are, and you've probably seen it on set visits - I hate that! I never, ever like sitting in video village. I get either my own monitor or a hand held monitor, and I stand right by the camera.

Going to directing wasn't a reaction away from acting as much as it was a move towards something I always wanted to do. Ever since I was a kid, I was interested in the camera and how it worked and why one director would place it in this part of the room and then another would place it in that part of the room.

When I'm directing a movie, nothing else matters.