Rian Johnson Quotes

I was writing, directing, and editing my own films as a young kid with my parents' video camera.

I started out doing music videos and photography, and I always loved writing. Filmmaking seemed to be a good compilation of all these skills in a way that allowed me to tell a story 'greater than the sum of its parts.'

I've directed a fair amount of television series - so I'm always trying to learn new things. One episode was all hand-held and I'm trying to get better at when you should do things and when you should just shut up and watch what the people are saying.

I just use all the skills that I learned in film school, and I just incorporate them into my sketches. People don't realize that, with a story, there has to be a beginning, middle and end. There has to be a problem and a resolution. Just because it's six seconds doesn't mean it's not a story.

If you want to make movies you need to think on a micro-micro level and figure out how to make them for nothing with people who really care about your movie and really want to make it.

It's sort of one ongoing process where writing ends and directing starts.

We set out to capture what was happening, and then we cut that into the series.

There are a couple of stories that I have in my head for which I feel like I should collaborate with people. So yes, if I would like to direct, I would also like to write whatever I direct.

Go home, pick up your video camera, and make a film.

Designing the technical aspects of my camera movement for me is very important. I want the camera to be a big part in telling the story as well, like what I really believe in with all the films I make.

The directing process is often a continuation of the writing. This is just a different skill-set.

We [with Neal Dodson and Corey Moosa] wanted to draw people in with a dialogue - whether it's a creative process or a social issue or innovation of some kind; whether it was how we told the stories or what stories we told. We produced some online videos.

Filmmaking isn’t if you can just strap on a camera onto an actor, and steadicam, and point it at their face, and follow them through the movie, that is not what moviemaking is, that is not what it’s about. It’s not just about getting a performance. It’s also about the psychology of the cinematic moment, and the psychology of the presentation of that, of that window.

I compose the frame literally with the camera. Unless it makes a story point.

I felt like I was a writer, and I just thought filmmaking was the best way for me to express that, because it allows me to embrace the visual world that I love. It's allows me to interact with people, to be more social than fiction or poetry, and it felt like the right way for me to tell the stories that felt pressing to me.

I'm trying to use the camera to get into people's heads. I use camera techniques a lot to articulate character.

You usually get one or the other, you get someone who knows how to tell a story but they don't necessarily know about light and camera and rhythm, or you get someone who can make beautiful images but they can't necessarily tell a great story. He does both and I think he's going to be one of the film-makers that our time is remembered for.

I did it [photojournalism] as something that was really rewarding to do, given the opportunity to express myself about something I cared about, and also to learn a lot by watching filmmakers I admired. In a sense, it was my film school. After doing it for a few years, I decided that the time had come to get it together and do some work of my own. So I stopped doing that and wrote some screenplays on speculation, because even though I wanted to direct, to direct you need a lot of money.

The function of camera movement is to assist the storytelling. That's all it is. It cannot be there just to demonstrate itself.

I do want to direct, eventually. I don't know if it will be a short film or a music video or a feature, but I know that I want to at least try it and see.

I make home movies-therefore I live. I live - therefore I make home movies.

You know what's it's changed is my appreciate for the art form of making cinema. I don't want to act as much as I want to tell stories. I want to be a part of the whole collective and pull all of the pieces together. That's what I love about directing.

A camera is a camera, a shot is a shot, how you tell the story is the main thing.

I didn't have any set idea of what kind of filmmaker I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to tell stories that meant something to me, but I never said I was going to be the weird, avant-garde guy.

Directing is one of my favourite things to do because I love telling stories and I love working with the individual artists and it's something that I really missed.