Madeleine Stowe Quotes

I directed a movie and now, I'm going to do the editing.

I've never heard of a comedy that hasn't had reshoots, especially for the ending of a movie in a comedy.

I have no control over a film. I don't know what will be left on the cutting floor.

Movies are great fun and wonderful when they're good. But you never get to see them till six months after they're finished. So you never get a sense of whether they're really well liked or how good they are. And you don't really know what the finished product is going to be like, because it's a director's medium.

I have mixed feelings about 'Car 54, Where Are You?' Because we shot it as a musical and whoever the studio head was at Orion, or whoever the powers that be were, cut all but, like, two musical numbers out of it. That is the same as cutting the musical numbers out of 'The Wizard Of Oz'; it wouldn't be that interesting.

I'm not one of these directors, so far, that wants to have a whole separate director's cut of these things. So far they've turned out to be kind of the length that they wanted to be.

Once you walk off the set, if you're an actor, the rest isn't your responsibility, which I like a lot. I'm not responsible for the final product, which is why it's always a pleasure when you see it's in the hands of the people afterwards putting it together.

Editing is the only process. The shooting is the pleasant work. The editing makes the movie, so I spend all my life in editing.

There are two phases to a movie. First you shoot the movie, and then you make the movie. Generally, post-production is longer than filming.

I was briefly in the original version of 'Tombstone,' but I didn't make the final cut because that movie went through a couple of different permutations.

I'd really like to do a movie, either as a producer or director. My ultimate fantasy would be to direct a movie and produce the entire soundtrack. I don't really see myself acting.

The thing I realized about final cut is it's the power of the best cut. I didn't have final cut on 'Prisoners,' but what you saw is the best cut. 'Sicario' is a directors' cut. 'Arrival' is a directors' cut.

Even when 'Kaakha Kaakha' was released, there were people who gave it an average rating and said they couldn't figure out what was happening. Three days after its release, the producer called me and asked me to remove all of Jothika's scenes from the film. I told him; in that case, you can also remove my name from the director's slot.

It's very rare to watch a movie and think, 'That's the movie we shot!' So many things happen, with edits and things getting cut out.

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

Directing takes a lot longer than acting. This was about seven years in development, and then two and a half years with pre-production, production, post and now the release. Not that I have people banging on my door to star in movies, but it takes me out of the acting game for a longer chunk of time.

If you didn't get it right and then you have to release a director's cut to undo what the studio made you release, I don't know, either it's some marketing thing for them to get more money or the director didn't do his job.

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.

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.

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 like to say that films are never finished, they're only abandoned.

Whenever I'm doing any film, there's always three different things. There's the script, which is really just a blueprint. And then, you shoot the movie and it's an entirely different experience than you would expect from reading the script. And then, there's the whole post process and the editing, and it becomes something else entirely.

With film, so much is in the director's hands. Once something is cut together - unless you're in the editing room - you don't really remember what the alternatives are.

And then to see the whole movie, you're pretty much waiting until the end of production. And the major lifting in terms of editing and all that stuff is done before you shoot the movie. That's an unusual way to work.

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.