Edward Zwick Quotes

To be a good director, you have to spend a lot of time on actual sets, but today, there's a lot of people who spend a lot of time in dark rooms writing a script, and they'll go in and tell the story to some suit at a studio who says, 'Okay, this is great, let's go.' But that doesn't necessarily mean you know what to do once you're on set.

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.

You don't want to be starting a film not knowing what you want to do.

On 'Darjeeling,' I was on set every day and I acted as the second unit director and a producer on that film. I was there throughout the whole process. On 'Moonrise Kingdom,' I showed up for one day.

I've shot a lot of places, and I've produced. I always thought, 'Gosh, when you shoot in a big city, it's so difficult.' And New York, I always think, 'Where are you going to park the trucks? How are you going to stop the traffic?'

Every single day of making a movie is going to bring new problems.

I think any filmmaker looks back and thinks, 'Boy, if we only had four hours more on that day when the sun was going down,' or, 'If we only spent more time and went back.'

Well, that was certainly - to me, until we could film in Charles' room, I didn't even want to bother filming anything else. And in fact, I did hold off and that was the first thing we filmed.

I work in film, TV, commercials and do live PR stunts for companies. A lot of my time is spent reading scripts and looking at designing sequences, speaking to directors and producers about how they want the sequences to look, how they will work and budgeting those stunts.

After directing movies, I respect any director in this world, because making a movie as a director is tons and tons of work.

I had thirty weeks of prep on 'Captain America.' I have a small team of qualified, supportive, creative producers who are actually helping me achieve my vision of the film. I had a dream cast headed by Chris Evans. I had the best designers, artists, sculptors, craftspeople.

I shoot reality-based movies, and in actual locations, shooting them with a star is next to impossible.

I really fight hard to make things film where they're supposed to be filmed. If something is supposed to be in New York, then it has to be in New York.

We started getting the script to different people and we were in the business of trying to fund it so we could get it off and running, and all the characters and sets designed and everything.

I believe that shows should be shot where they take place.

The experience of making a movie is far removed from watching the end result. It's exciting, but it still makes me squirm.

I sometimes have dreams that my assistant director is waking me up and trying to get me to the set.

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.

I think the larger productions in India are very methodical and pretty much on the ball in terms of work. When I say work, I mean pre-production and the homework that's required.

I've realised that to make a successful film, you have to be with a unit which is happy and positive from the beginning.

I definitely storyboard, but I only start once I have cast and location. I like to find the world first.

Typically, whenever you're envisioning how you're going to shoot something, you have a location or a set that you're going to build, and it's going to be built to specifications.

Shooting on location and dressing locations in Los Angeles is shockingly expensive, especially when you're talking about webseries-level budgets, so the opportunity to build our sets in YouTube's space gives us a lot more room in our budget in being able to create the world of 'VGHS' properly.

You go to the edit room and see one scene which has come out fantastically, and you feel the film will set records. By evening, you look at the budget figures or something that hasn't worked out and ask yourself - what if this doesn't work?

All the films are hits before you turn the camera on. It's only in the execution that they fail. I've been less than happy with the way a couple of films were edited, but it's a director's prerogative and you gotta go with it.