Neill Blomkamp Quotes

Interestingly, my first director's cut was an hour and forty-one minutes. Then, the studio actually wanted to add more to the story, so we went all the way up to an hour and forty-seven minutes. After that, I made some additional cuts and now we are where we are.

I always say writing is like dreaming, shooting is like living, and editing is like murder, because you take all these gifts that actors give you, and you cut them.

The first cut I do is usually between five and 10 minutes shorter then the cut that we release. Anything I think isn't working or might not work, I don't even put it in the director's cut. And usually it's the studio suggesting I put stuff back in, as opposed to studios saying, "You got to lose 40 minutes," they are always saying, "You've got to gain five minutes."

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.

The Weinsteins believe in test screenings. I don't. I don't think good films are made that way. Call me crazy, but I'd like to think you need a singular vision to make good art.

Filmmakers need to realize that their job isn't done when they lock picture. We must see our films through.

It was exactly what was released two months later with the exception of a couple of reaction shots which we went back in to get. I liked the movie very much and asked him what the studio's problem was. I felt that he was at a point where they might have worn him down.

When you get to know an artist, you find out the things that have peeved them over the years, and it's generally the stuff that has to do with somebody not wanting to do things their way in the studio.

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.

When I did 'Stardust,' I was fighting the studio for things I believed were right.

The Marvel experience was particularly wrenching because I was sort of given absolute freedom while we were shooting, and then in post, it turned into a different movie.

To me, 'director's cut' means that what was released before was somebody else's cut. That, to me, always implies that what was released wasn't what the director wanted.

Films are a director's medium. We're all stemming from the director.

I have always believed that when a film is being made, it has to be the director's vision.

They started saying stuff like 'Should we cut the movie? Is it too this, too that?' It got drastic. It got heated. I said, 'Wait a minute, folks. I didn't make 'Smokey' for big-city audiences. I made it for the South, the Midwest and Northwest. Those are my people.'

I'm not a big fan of the George Lucas school of meddling and tinkering. That's a slippery slope.

The timing for directing is usually because it takes that long to develop a piece and then do pre-production and then post-production. It takes at least a couple of years. I prefer directing to doing other things. Directing and writing seem to be infinitely more creative

I've made quite a number of movies like Castaway and a few others where I'm the only guy in the movie and the only place to be is right next to the camera in costume ready to go in order to get it. The years, and more specifically probably the four months prior to beginning shooting, is where the big preparation is that the director does because I knew we were going to get on the set. And the good news is, if you're the boss, if it ain't good, you don't use it. You just cut it out.

I'm so consistent that my director's cuts are usually 20-25 minutes longer than the released version of the movies.

I would rather not make a film than make one where I don't have final cut.

Producing is making films without having to work sometimes. It's still making films, but it's a different job. When you're the director, you kinda do all the work. I'm actually going tonight to check the prints of my movie even though the premiere's tomorrow night.

Even if I'd stayed [in the US to finish 'The Magnificent Ambersons'] I would've had to make compromises on the editing, but these would've been mine and not the fruit of confused and often semi-hysterical committees. If I had been there myself I would have found my own solutions and saved the pictures in a form which would have carried the stamp of my own effort.

There's no point in it unless it's a story that you really want to tell. It's a nebulous job. Unless you're doing it well, you're not doing anything. And there are a few of those. It's perfectly possible to be a passenger on a film set because if somebody else has written it, you can make nothing of that role and that's exactly what bad directors do.

I've had to cut my mom out of a movie before - it's ruthless, editing. But it's also so necessary; because once you start taking away, it's like sculpture, you can really start feeling the shape of the whole.

Usually, those people don't even like actors and they can't wait until they get in the cutting room. They kind of break down in categories: directors who like to be surprised and some of them abhor being surprised. As far as directing, we all direct when we're acting in movies... every single one of us.