Carl Hiaasen Quotes

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.

I'm proud of 'Sinister' because Scott and Cargill did a great job on the movie, and I set up a framework for them to make what they wanted to make. They gave me the idea, and I figured out how to get it out into the world.

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

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

A script is only as good as the director who's making it.

Since signing with Universal, I have been working closely with Gary Ross, the director, producer and screenwriter. We have spent many hours on the phone, and I've been sending him information and items that have been useful to the writing process.

All the director wants is their idea of the movie to be believed in.

For me now, it's about what you would write and what you wouldn't write, and that's how I select what I am going to do. It can be quite nice being brought a concept by a studio for me to work on.

I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.

You get spoiled as a novelist because you get to be the director and the editor, and you play all the parts, but as a screenwriter, you are a bit down the ladder.

When you're lucky enough to get paid a nice chunk of change to write a movie or a TV show, you have no right to complain, really. I guess it's more of an appeal to the powers that be that the less they interfere, the more likely, actually, they are to get something that works, I think.

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

I originally went to school to be a filmmaker. And so it's a big part of how I think and how I write. And it inspires me a lot.

You have to pace yourself. As a producer, you start with a concept and shepherd it through the script to the delivery of the film. It's a very long journey for an hour and 40 minutes of movie.

You can sit around and complain that Hollywood doesn't make any good movies. But you can generate your own material. So I read books. I come up with ideas. I was the producer on 'The Woodsman' to help get that off the ground. Sometimes that extends itself to directing.

I think that, again, filmmaking is the director's medium in the end, and the best thing a producer can do is stay out of the way and support the director one hundred percent.

Actors don't request what scenes to be written in. That's just not how it works.

I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes.

Making a movie like 'Felony' is hard work because you're really putting your own ideas on the screen. You can't hide behind some other person's script; you're saying, 'This is my brain, and I want you to know what I think'.'

Not that I've always loved the movie when they finally come out, or if they ever come out-because many of them don't come out-but I've gotten to work with really good story editors and stuff like that.

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.

It's madness to hand in a script to a director, leave them alone, and for the director not to want the writer there with rehearsals and the shoot.

And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made.

When you direct a movie, you're basically looking at a story, the way you want to look at it. You bring that director's vision, and I'm totally open for that.

I wasn't trained as a writer-director. And the projects I write are difficult to finish.