Ari Aster Quotes

I made lots of short films, about nine or ten short films. And then I made a television film called 'This Little Life.'

To answer the question, though: I didn't always want to direct. I just liked the idea of it. If a friend was making a short and needed someone who knew screen direction, I would jump in. It would be horrible, but it led to a short, then another, and another. It was like student films.

The truth is, when I started to make films, I was terrified. I had a huge difference in what I was writing in the screenplay and what was on the screen after. Sometimes there was a big gap. Now, the more I have experienced, the more I do movies, the more I feel that the dream is closer to the screen. It's coming with experience.

I started off writing TV adverts. I saw those as rehearsals for a feature film.

Eventually, it came to this place like, 'I'd like to direct, but I need to find the story to tell.' 'Man of Tai Chi' became the story to tell.

With directing, you've got to find something and drag it up from its inception, and I'm at the early stages of doing that again. There's something all-consuming and addictive about that.

To this day I over prepare. I draw storyboards for every scene - chicken scratches so crude that they amuse and horrify the crew. I send out shot lists, act out the scenes, and search for a theme that I can relate to. It's my favorite time of the process.

When I'm writing a movie, it's usually pretty close to what the movie is going to be, which is just a luxury of being a writer-director.

I want to make my own films from my own scripts based on stories I want to tell, but they take time to put together.

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

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

I made shorts films, learning the dos and don'ts. Most importantly, I've been editing all these short films. Nothing can teach you filmmaking like editing can.

I am discovering myself as a director all the time.

I did a couple of short films when I was in Scotland.

I used to make short films even as a kid. I used to have a camera and play around with it. So, I was always interested in the process and telling stories. I've always wanted to direct.

As a screenwriter, you are so used to things going in directions that you wouldn't have taken, so to be able to say, 'This is how I intended it, this is how I want to shoot it, and these are the decisions that I'll live by,' I think directing is a logical conclusion of mine.

To get the film in your head on the screen, first you have to take it out of your head and explain it to everyone who is working with you. This will take work and planning.

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

I graduated from the American Film Institute in 2010, where I studied as a director, and came out with a few features I really wanted to make.

When I start on a film I always have a number of ideas about my project. Then one of them begins to germinate, to sprout, and it is this, which I take and work with. My films come from my need to say a particular thing at a particular time. The beginning of any film for me is this need to express something. It is to make it nurture and grow that I write my script- it is directing it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit.

I go out and look for a good story to tell and if I like it enough and I decide to direct it, I become dangerously involved in becoming a part of that story.

Producing is hell, writing is frustrating, acting is really satisfying, directing is heaven.

The reason I wanted to start directing is that as an actor I felt I came into a job late. There's a whole team of people who have been working on it for months before you start. You have this really intense period of filming and then you leave it, knowing that the director will work on it for another few months.

As a director, you try to find what is creative.

I have always watched the rushes, and have learned more because I have done so, because you can have all manner of ideas in your head, but they have to end up on the screen.