Mike Nichols Quotes

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.

Even other movies I wasn't involved with, I'd watch them edit 'cause I really enjoy watching them go through their process. It's a very economical, educational process.

You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble. Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don't talk to anybody.

Whenever I'm not shooting, I'm in the editing room with my footage. While the crew is taking 15 minutes to an hour to set up the next shot, I'm behind the Avid, putting the flick together.

I became really aware that when you're making a movie, you're making it three times. You're making it when you're writing it. You're making it when you're shooting it. And then you're remaking it again when you're editing it.

With me, I probably work a lot more than people assume I do, but people don't realize how much work goes into writing and producing and making a movie.

Learning how to edit movies was a real breakthrough.

If I heard somebody else say, 'I worked on a movie for five years', I'd be like, 'What? How could it take that long? What were you doing?'

My dad always produces, and I would always sit in producers' meetings with him. I like the whole thing of putting a movie together. I think that's very exciting.

I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.

There are so many decisions in making a movie.

There are no great scripts - just great films.

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

The process of making a movie is what I love. I thrive on that. It's an exciting miracle, a mad adventure. I love being part of it.

I first started working in film when I was 17. I was a director's assistant, an editor.

There are so many details in a movie that it's amazing how much work you'll do to change what adds up to not that much material.

That's the joy of making a movie: watching all the elements come together.

From 2005 to 2010, I was exclusively shooting 'The Act of Killing' and then editing it.

I just love the process of filmmaking.

I've always been a relaxed person on set, but I think the main thing is I think about it from an editing point of view way more than I did before.

I love the auditioning process. I love working with the technical guys. I absolutely love the editing room. That was completely fascinating to me, working with an editor in crafting the thing into something you had in your head.

I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit.

Once your acting job is over, you just hope they have a good editor and they put together a good film.

It's been 50 years since I was on the roof of my parents' house shooting Hag in a Black Leather Jacket when I didn't even know there was such a thing as editing. I thought you just shot the film and showed it. That's exactly what I did. I'm not that different 50 years later.

I like to say that films are never finished, they're only abandoned.