Thomas Newman Quotes

Everybody is always trying to make the best movie they can. It's a process.

I think each movie-making process is a very exhausting and satisfying and fulfilling experience for me.

For me, the most important thing is the writing - and certainly the director. But if the writing isn't there, it doesn't matter who the director is!

I never watch the dailies. What I usually do is have a look at the rough or final cut, and I just get something from the story. Sometimes I start composing even before the director has shot anything. The dailies don't help me at all.

If you're writing a screenplay for a feature, you don't have any involvement with the casting process, the editing process, the set design, the costume design, or any of that stuff.

For me, every film is like the first picture. I am very choosy with the director and producer.

Making a film - particularly what I think is a good film - is the result of a team of people, and the end result has many, many hands on it.

As a director, you try to find what is creative.

As a filmmaker, I'm very collaborative. I don't pretend to know everything that is needed to make a movie. What I like to do is get together with a group of people, starting with developing the story and bounce around ideas.

I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.

As far as writing or directing a film, I've worked with enough people who have done that that I know it's just a whole other level of responsibility and chaos and murder that I could not see happening. For now, I'm just going to see what comes. I know what I like and what direction I have.

Film, for me, is in two stages. One is when I write the script more or less on my own - that's the nice bit. And then comes for me the unpleasant bit when they all go off, 100 people - actors and camera people and film and sound - and I stay away. When they go into the editing room, I come in again, and that's the bit I like.

There's some things that you learn as you're shooting, and as you're editing that are key, because when you start you don't have the brain that can finish it. You don't really know what it is, and that's the key job; figuring out what you actually have, not what you're dreaming of having.

Directing is creating a whole. You're able to combine different elements and create a film that is unique and true to your vision.

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

It's funny to see the finished product of a movie, stuff that's so beautiful, and to remember the particulars.

There are no great scripts - just great films.

I co-wrote and produced 'Sticky Fingers' with Catlin Adams, who directed it. I learned a lot writing and producing with Cat. I spent as much time as I could in the cutting room with her. All the producing experience that I had helped.

Directing is a very long process, and I have to be in love with it if I want to give up two years of my life and live with it from beginning to end!

When you make a film you usually make a film about an idea.

The type of producing that I did for many years involved working very closely with directors.

I'd have to say the whole experience in making The Neverending Story. I had an incredible time.

I got involved in script development from the beginning. It was nice to see how a film gets made right from the beginning. It was quite hands-on for me.

When you make a movie, it's up to so many things and so many people.

A successful film begins by choosing a director whose creative vision will define the choices made by everyone involved in the film.