Rachel Morrison Quotes

It's not a film-maker's job to explain his technique, but to tell his story the best way he can.

I have a great little camera, and I had a theory that if the story is interesting, it doesn't matter what medium you shoot it on. You just have to make a good film.

My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.

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

I was just trying to make a nice little movie... It wasn't until I saw it all put together that I realized this was something remarkable.

The thing is, as a film director, you're essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you know the film you see in your head.

For me, I see filmmaking as art.

The only way you can learn about making films is by making them, by putting your stamp on the thing.

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.

Since I was a child, I've liked telling stories. Maybe because my father's a director, I grew up loving stories. I'm not good at spinning them at a dinner table because I do go on a bit, but I love writing them, and directing is just a way of editing the story.

So many directors say nothing beautifully, and so many others say great and profound things but have no idea how to read a light meter or arrange a shot.

Film is the only language I speak, and I have been lucky to be involved in some great stories. You don't want to preach to people, but you want them to think about why things are the way they are, the history that is there as well as the possibilities.

When you look at a movie, you look at a director's thought process.

All movies are pure process. A commercial movie isn't less process than an art movie. You can't make your decisions about a film on the basis of, 'Is it important enough? Is it serious enough?' It's either alive or it's not for me. If it's alive, I want to do it.

Being a filmmaker is kind of like being a glorified spy.

I really got into filmmaking through photography.

TV and film taught me to think cinematically. Teaching others to edit, for example, provides a great deal of insight into the millions of ways in which given elements can be put together to tell a story.

I know the movies that I've liked, and I know the experience that they've given me, so the goal is always to try to create a movie that I would like myself and that would knock me out, challenge me or intrigue me in some way. That's been my criteria for figuring out what I want to do, or also when I'm writing something or creating a scene.

When you shoot a movie, the camera is always taking, taking, taking and not giving anything back.

I don't study films particularly. I plan to direct, but I'm not watching film - I watch the entire film to see how the story goes, but I don't say, 'Oh, so he does a slow pan here, or he pulls here, watch the crane shot, or look at the composition,' because it's got to be my eye.

'Rocket Science' is really where I fell in love with filmmaking, I think 'Camp' was incredible, but it was so bizarre, and I was trying to find my footing in this world where you don't have an audience for immediate validation.

It's incredible to see the creativity, beauty and hardships people capture when filmmaking is opened up and shared with the world.

The beauty of doing film is that you construct whatever you do block by block and you can build something that will stay.

I'm working on a few different films and I'm just searching for the right new story to tell. As a director, you just have to kind of like just get through the first project before starting on the next one.

I've always been interested in the camera and the effects of it - that's what drew me to film in the first place.