Tom Skerritt Quotes

Film work can be very interesting, but it also can be awfully boring because who creates the film? The actors? No. It is the director. It's his piece of work.

I think you cannot make films without choosing everything.

Visual elements are, of course, the director's job.

When you direct your first film, you always start by telling stories that you are familiar with.

My father was a director and producer, so when I was a little kid, he would take me to movies and show me what's good and what's not good and why, and often that would take me to a conversation about directing.

I have to say that whatever decisions I make, I really do think that movie making is a director's medium. They are the people that ultimately shape the film, and a director can take great material and turn it into garbage if they are not capable of making a good movie.

I am eternally impressed and amazed by what directors do.

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.

In a movie, you're raw material, just a hue of some color and the director makes the painting.

When you make a movie, you do it so piecemeal. You're doing it, not only scene by scene, out of order, but shot by shot, line by line. And there's this idea that the director has the whole thing in his or her head and they're going to somehow weave it all together in the end.

I have considered the directing, actually. Not so much the writing. That is not really interesting, but the directing is really interesting to me.

I knew that I'd end up directing because I'm so hands-on with my films.

Making a movie and not directing the little moments is like drinking a soda and leaving the little slurp puddle for someone else.

I'm a storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move!

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

I want to direct. Definitely a goal of mine.

I feel like I'm a filmmaker; I don't feel I need to yell action and cut.

Great art direction is NOT the same thing as great film direction!

Going to directing wasn't a reaction away from acting as much as it was a move towards something I always wanted to do. Ever since I was a kid, I was interested in the camera and how it worked and why one director would place it in this part of the room and then another would place it in that part of the room.

When I'm directing a movie, nothing else matters.

I think directing is something I would really enjoy.

As the director of a film, as the story teller, you have to keep your voice alive.

When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me. So when David Fincher comes along and wants to direct 'The Social Network,' when Bennett Miller comes along and wants to direct 'Moneyball,' or when Danny Boyle wants to direct 'Jobs'? Hallelujah. I want them directing it.

Some directors are interested in acting, and others are only interested in cranes and moving the camera.

My job is to kind of nudge them. Who said it, where, like, '90% of the job is casting,' so all I do is try to come to set and focus on getting all the best shots to cover the story; that's really it.