Saul Bass Quotes

You get a different kick out of all aspects of filmmaking.

Everything is always against you when making a movie, and if you don't have a solid blueprint that the entire team can get behind and understand and then execute, then you're going to be lost on the set.

Sometimes there's something that a writer doesn't see or a producer doesn't see when he's looking at a shot.

In Hitchcock's movies you can see the storyboards and that's cool. It's nice to see a filmmaker be that prepared. Most filmmakers today have their heads up their ass, they're not nearly that prepared. He obviously had a right to say this is what I want and this is how we're doing it, because he was ready. Some filmmakers show up on the set and they don't know what they're doing. So then everyone has ideas and that makes a bad situation too. Be a director who's completely in control and yet no one knows it.

It was important on The Shipping News to have my house far enough away from each location so I had this time in the morning to think about my shots and still remain open to surprises once I got to the set.

I really enjoy being behind the camera. A ton of projects I've done that are my most favorite projects would be where I actually executive produce and I'm behind the camera.

My responsibility is to make a film and find my dramatic language; I don't have any political or social responsibility.

It's kind of dangerous to cut in the camera, but that's the only way I know how to direct.

In film, you're painting a canvas. I got really excited about that.

My M.F.A was in directing, and all the films I've made, for film school and after, I've written, directed and shot.

I learned a lot about how to shoot and how to put together sequences.

It's weird - on almost every film I've worked on, the first sequence we storyboard ends up being the first sequence that goes into animation, and ends up being almost shot-for-shot the same.

When you're directing, you see your ideas. You see them created right in front of you on the monitor and the sound stage. You get that experience all over again when you get into the editing room and you start playing with it.

You talk about what a director, he was smart. He said, Turn the camera on!

I studied Hitchcock a little bit at University and knew the famous story about the Birds - that he'd tortured Tippi for a day using real birds. I had no idea that it was a five-day onslaught and that it was the tip of an iceberg that carried on through to another film.

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.

I don't make movies because I love to act. I make movies because I like to make movies, and I like to be a part of that process.

To me, the director is the most important, rather than the story.

I see what's behind everything the director wants to do.

When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see.

I'm a filmmaker, and I was most influenced by Hitchcock's films. How he could plant such deep enriched characters and then make us care both about the antagonist and protagonist was masterful.

A career for me is something like building a bridge. You know, where to put the lifts. You have a plan. I have a blueprint for each film, but not for my life.

When a scene is being shot, it is very difficult to know what one wants it to say, and even if one does know, there is always a difference between what one has in mind and the result on film.

I love films for the fact that it is like working under a microscope. It is sort of like a laboratory.

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.