Doug Aitken Quotes

In an ideal world, as a director, you usually wish you could do your own thing and not have to take anyone else's point of view into account, but occasionally you work with someone like Robyn, who brings a new set of ideas to the table, and the whole ends up much greater than the sum of the parts.

I think the best work flows out of a collaborative environment.

On a film, you start to get closer and closer with the people you're working with, and it becomes like this circus act or this travelling family.

A lot of directors prefer the solitude of the editing process, but I revel in the craziness of what a film set is.

Your brain forms a story and, if you're lucky, there's a line where the story takes over the brain. You don't even know what you have.

Looking back at it now, it's almost overwhelming, the amount of work that went into writing 'Shine', and to come up with the ideas that we're doing now.

You need a place to work that works for you, and you need people to understand that when you are writing, you are doing a rarefied type of brain surgery and therefore should not be subject to a million random interruptions.

It used to take me a really long time, and I used to not be able to write in the studio because I felt there was a lot of pressure to be perfect. The more I'm collaborating with other artists, the more I realize being in the studio is about catching a vibe.

I've always liked playing with somebody else and collaborating, just to get out of my own head all the time. Everybody does, but artists especially, we torture ourselves. So it's good for me to immerse myself in somebody else's work.

My place in London is very small, so a piano would take up a third of the room. I leave home in the morning when I'm there and go to my studio. I close the door, and it's soundproof. There's no phone or TV or computer, and I can work uninterruptedly. That has been a huge advantage over the years.

I write all my scripts with Salman in mind. He understands me perfectly on the sets.

I quietly work with my computer on the tour bus, and then I wait to make my more natural rhythms when I get home.

The whole thing of working in collaboration with filmmakers is the thing that I love the most, and possibly the thing I do the best.

As in a love affair, two creative people can destroy themselves trying to recapture that youthful spirit, at twenty-one or twenty-four, of creating without even being aware of how it's happening

There's a few people who I've accumulated over the years who I really trust to show a first cut to and to be helpful rather than unhelpful.

I was really nervous, because I was certain it was going to be bigger than anything I'd ever done before. But I was relieved when I actually discovered that there was a family atmosphere on the set, with a brother-sister team, Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson running it all.

I've done some collaborations which have ended up like Chinese whispers, but the most successful was with Tilda Swinton... Together we transcended our previous work and made something better together than we could have done apart.

I believe in hiring people to do their jobs.I want to hire an editor.They say you make a movie three times: when you write it, when you direct it, and when you edit it. So I have three shots to get it right!

You know, because you outline a movie, it kinda comes at the same time. I mean, there are days when you are just concentrating on 'ok, let's worry about just comedy today,' and there are days when you're like 'you know what, we gotta just beef up the story.'. But, it's not like process wise it's that technically separate. One informs the other, so they kinda all happen together ideally.

My creative life is a constant struggle to achieve a balance between letting things flow in and letting things flow out.

Every morning for, I don't know how long, I came over to Alison's [McGhee] house and we sat in her office and wrote the stories "out loud" together. We yelled at each other and made each other laugh. It was a lot of fun.

I tend to write first thing, and then do my drawing later. I like to draw at night. But often I go for long stretches without drawing, because I'm trying to figure out what I'm writing.

I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas.

You have to love writing a song and architecture. You have to give it a form. It is my job to create a sonic landscape. I like to create ambiance and atmosphere. The writing is the intimate part of it. It is a sketch. The production is the whole painting.

As a director, you want to be really connected to every part of your set, from your actors all the way to your camera operators. Everybody is a part of the creative process, and if they feel like they're part of a team versus just being a tool, they're going to give you something special.