John Niven Quotes

Directing was easy for me because I was a writer director and did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay.

When I do a movie, I have the script. I know how it begins and how it ends. I know what my character does and where he's going. If I have ideas I want to express or changes I want to make, there's one guy: the director. It's different in television.

When I was shooting 'Mud,' every day was my favourite! I had so much fun on this film and loved working with all the cast and crew! It was a great experience.

What's fascinating is that when you write a script, it's almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you're not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.

Filmmaking is so heavy: there are so many people and trucks and teamsters and costume people and hair people and makeup people. I try to make it light and as simple as possible. It's great for actors. It puts the story up front. It's not about shots and dollies and lighting and sets.

I recommend to any of you, that's always a good way to make a film: use the interesting bits.

In my films writers are more important than actors.

Aamir Khan in a sense, was my first teacher for filmmaking. He used to answer my doubts on the sets of 'Joh Jeeta Wahi Sikander.'

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

I'm not saying I'm a writer, but I've been in movies for a long time, and I think I could write a script for a movie.

I am incapable of directing a film like 'Agneenath.' I can do only what I am good at, so I would have been the worst choice to direct it. It has aggression, action and an inherent violence in it - things I am not capable of directing in my films.

I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.

I discovered that, in order to write a magnificent piece, you should shoot the images because once you are filming, you are writing the script in your mind.

I enjoy looking at words on paper and visualizing how to make them come to life. As a director, the creative process is really amazing.

When you act in a film, you're inevitably surrounded by people you didn't choose, right down to the set painter. I like being able to pick the family I'm waking up to in the morning that's going to make this group effort to tell a story that applies to what's interesting to me at that stage in my life.

I wouldn't want to direct - I think that's a very different job. You have to be a very specific type of person to do that.

When I write a screenplay, and when I direct, I always pull lines out.

One day I had an idea for a movie. Everything came after that.

One of the things I've learned as a filmmaker is to have some aspect of the movie be something that I admire greatly, whether that's an actor I'm working with, the subject matter, or a book.

If you put someone in a room with no script to direct, they're just going to sit there. Writing scripts is the execution for a show. Then the director takes that and hires people. It's like trying to build a house without any bricks. You need the script. I could build the house, but I have to know how.

As far as writing or directing a film, I've worked with enough people who have done that that I know it's just a whole other level of responsibility and chaos and murder that I could not see happening. For now, I'm just going to see what comes. I know what I like and what direction I have.

When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. That's what writing a screenplay is.

I want to work with anyone who's passionate about telling a story. I obviously have a list of people I really love, but it's a really long list.

I think the worst that can happen in filmmaking is if you're working with a storyboard. That kills all intuition, all fantasy, all creativity.

For so many years, I've been an actor acting in other people's movies, and in 'Unstoppable,' I'm producing it, and I have an opportunity to create some of that excitement with style and form and different color templates and things like that. So, as an artist, it's really exciting.