Jonathan Mostow Quotes

I think movies have much more magic than the theater. Theater can be a magical experience, but movies thrust their subjectivity on you in a more profound way.

Historically, stop-motion animation has had a jerky-jerky quality, which is a constant reminder to audiences that they're looking at artificial objects. It creates a barrier between the audience having an emotional experience and what they're looking at. We're working hard to get past that.

I realized that my camera work could help me in a lot of ways to put the audience in the driver's seat, so to speak, to get them in there with the action, and to get them as close and be as intimate with what was going on on-screen as possible.

I'm such a proponent of the theatrical experience and the cinematic experience, and we've reached this point where the magicians are not only giving away their tricks, but they're telling us how they're doing the tricks in advance before you even come to the magic show. It'd be nice to get a little of the mystery back in.

Most of us do not consciously look at movies.

Film is so immersive.

Tracking action without cutting is the least jarring method of placing the audience into a real-time experience where they are the ones making the subtle choices of where and when to look.

Whereas 'Avatar' and other movies get shocks out of their three-dimensionality, 'Gatsby' is going to be about inviting the audience into this larger-than-life drama, letting them almost be inside the room rather than looking at it through the window. I think it will really work.

I have nothing against 3-D in theory. But I've also never run to the movies because something's in 3-D.

A film that is bleached tends to have a more realistic quality.

You have to realize I like doing big movies that appear on a big screen. So the visuals and the audio have to be of a certain quality before I start to get excited about the thing.

You are always hoping that movie audiences are interested in characters and interested in story values rather than just mindless special effects. But you never know.

If you are not moved by the character, no amount of CGI will give you a performance that is emotionally engaging or devastating - what a live-action performance does.

When you see 'Lord of the Rings,' you want to feel like you've been dropped into it and that you're part of it. You don't want to be aware of how it's being done; you just want it to feel really seamless.

I feel the horror audience is a great audience, and I would ideally make a movie that would give them as much energy as they're willing to give to the picture.

Although it is a fantasy film, it's as real as it can be. You have to imagine that an audience will buy their ticket to a cinema and get on a first-class flight and journey to Middle Earth.

I once said that CGI makes you less inventive. At the time I was bemoaning the loss of the practical stunt. If a stunt can be done practically and safely, I'd rather do it old-style.

I think that two-dimensional film will always be here to stay because it always has its place, but 3D does too.

Entertainment and escapism - those are the bigger money-making films today.

My personal feeling is that ultra-high frame rates and ultra-vivid giant screen movies can be like a window onto reality. And if you recognize it as such, you can write your screenplay, direct your movie, edit it, and present it as a live experience - not like a movie.

I've often been accused of, 'Oh the movies looked good but there's no story,' but I disagree with that in theory, and '9' is a perfect example for me because the feel, the texture, and the look of that world, and those characters, is the story. That's a major component of why you feel the way you do when you're watching it.

When people think of a Hitchcock movie, it isn't just the visual, it's the sound.

I can't see any reason why a dramatic story can't be in 3-D. I think 'Lawrence of Arabia' would have been fabulous in 3-D.

I thought movies were handed down by God. I knew that theater was made by people because I saw the people in front of me, but movies seemed like they were delivered, wholly made, from Zeus's head or something.

I've always been interested in giving the audience a first-person experience in my movies.