David Zucker Quotes

A TV show is constant work, which is the great thing about it.

Doing a TV show, you're on an assembly line and it's as cut and dry as that. There are some shows that are exceptions. There are producers that want really special things.

I had a great time working on 'The Gates,' and that was my first real experience doing supernatural television, working with the special effects and everything that goes into making a supernatural show.

In editing, it's amazing how you choose the in and out points. What you cut on is everything for creating tension. It's amazing how expanding a shot by five seconds can just ruin the tension.

With TV, your first draft just doesn't matter. It's a skeleton, and then there's draft after draft after draft, and so many other factors influence it. It's just a whole different kind of storytelling.

I've been lucky enough that in the U.K., I've done shows that have aired once a week. I make a show there that runs seasonally, and we make one episode a week, and that is great - the value of time. You can really think and finesse what you want to do.

One thing that the audience, and perhaps critics, aren't aware of is that, especially in a film like 'Moonlight,' you always shoot a lot more footage than makes the cut of the film.

It's wonderful to work on footage by someone who understands how to get it to cut right, which a lot of directors don't.

Don't worry about getting final cut, worry about making the best possible cut.

Once I'm in the editing room, forget about what I intended to shoot. I take a cold, hard look at what I really did shoot, and then I edit that because, if you try to edit what you intended and you missed somewhere, that will show up.

Making a pilot is never a seamless process. If it is, it usually tanks.

A film ingeniously directed does indeed give the impression of having been laid end to end, but a film ingeniously edited gives the impression of having suppressed all direction.

I come out of TV, where you never reshoot, because you don't have time. If you do reshoot, it's because someone really screwed up.

I don't like to watch dailies or video playback unless I have to.

It's a lot of hard work to do a weekly TV show. It's certainly not fun.

I don't do any editing while we're making the movie. I sit down and watch it all with my editor, we make longhand notes on pads, and then we begin our work.

It's hard for people to understand editing, I think. It's absolutely like sculpture. You get a big lump of clay, and you have to form it - this raw, unedited, very long footage.

You have to edit it, mix it, color grade it, there are processes and the audience doesn't care when they binge-watch a show. They think in four weeks you should get the next season.

You first do the assembly cut, which is basically the cut that mirrors the script. You've got to start with that.

Making '1600 Penn' was really fun, and I learned a lot.

I don't think enough directors know enough about editing.

As the director, it's just a constant stream of meetings where you meet with all of the creatives who make all of the decisions for every part of the episodes. You're also scouting for locations, deciding on the locations, meeting with your first associate director; mine was Jennifer Truelove. She's one of my favorite people on the planet.

You're on set more when you produce an episode, and it's long hours, but you learn so much.

I remember walking into the editing room when I was a junior in college, and I watched the guy make cuts, and I didn't know what the hell was going on. He was just putting these shots together and telling the story, and it was amazing.

When you're doing the work, film and TV are exactly the same. TV is just film in reduced pieces.