George Stevens Quotes

Some directors don't get involved in the cinematography and are just about story, but I'm definitely more tactile than that in terms of my involvement in the minutiae.

My point was that it's hard to make good films, but I'm not under any illusion that you do all the time.

I'm not in a race with anybody to make the biggest hit movie anymore. I am just trying to tell stories that I can stay interested in for the two years it takes me to supervise the writing and to direct them.

I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.

I'm sort of killing two birds with one stone here, getting to write for 'True Blood' and being able to put myself in a comic at the same time.

When you're acting and directing, you're standing there acting with another actor, and you're trying to do your performance, and at the same time you're watching their performance, and making sure the lights are in the right place, and if the person is wearing the right wardrobe. All these things are going on in your head.

Usually, I think, every film I've made has been a book, and I've always read it.

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.

You have to realize, making movies is the weirdest thing you could ever do. It's a contrivance, but you're attempting to reach people's hearts in the dark, and there are so many factors that are out of your control.

Good directing is good writing and good casting.

I always write three or four projects at the same time. They're stories that I want to tell, and usually I dump them unfinished for the next one in order not to get too cornered and depressed about it.

It seems so cliched and obvious, but write the movie you want to see in the theater.

I have always written - since I was a kid. I might say that I am essentially a writer who is bored to be alone in the room writing. I need to have more people around me. So, I 'write' with a film camera and have a party at the same time by having a bunch of people around.

I really enjoy talking to actors or filmmakers that enjoy that process of creating and how they go about doing it.

When you think about being a director, you think about writing stories, putting the camera in interesting places and directing the actors to get your vision, but it's hard to imagine even this process... sitting here nine months later talking about the film and talking about it 20 times in one day. You don't even think about the part where you come to the set every morning and everyone's looking at you to see your mood in order to see what the day is going to be like, and the influence that you wield.

Making a film is a beautiful mystery. You go deep into the wood, and you don't want to come out of that wood.

You always want to do something different. I enjoy the process. I like making movies, and it's increasingly hard to find a movie you'd want to make.

The things I like to find in a story are punch and poetry.

When I'm making a movie, it's making use of my creative juices, and it fills me up with what really is - I think my purpose here is to tell stories.

I hope to direct a few more films before I leave the planet, so I hope I can find the material.

I've always seen it to be a privilege to make movies. It's a really expensive, creative medium.

With movies and TV, storytelling, it's a different medium. I really love it, but I'm one part of many, many pieces of that puzzle and a lot of it is out of my control.

The root of any film project for me is this inner need to express something. What nurtures this root and makes it grow into a tree is the script. What makes the tree bear flowers and fruit is the directing.

Making a film, you're in a really dark tunnel and the only kind of illumination is the shared experience you're having with your fellow cast and director.

I learned very quickly that the hard thing in life is to make good films. Technically, filmmaking is the camera and the actor telling the story and that's what I'm more interested in doing.