Ridley Scott Quotes

Editing is the only process. The shooting is the pleasant work. The editing makes the movie, so I spend all my life in editing.

I directed a movie and now, I'm going to do the editing.

The bottom line is that your performance is made in the editing room.

I'm very interested in the editing process - in all aspects of film-making, really.

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.

Editing is where movies are made or broken. Many a film has been saved and many a film has been ruined in the editing room.

Learning how to edit movies was a real breakthrough.

The one place I've seen something really come together is in editing. Sometimes you can save pieces in a way that you're really shocked.

I like pre-production and post the best. I don't like shooting at all. I find it grueling and tough, but I love post and the whole process of seeing the film finally come together. You start ironing out all the rough spots, and the really bad bits you just throw away. So from day one of post to the last day, you see nothing but improvements.

Of course, a movie is in constant flux.

I have no control over a film. I don't know what will be left on the cutting floor.

I usually do about five cuts as a director. I haven't ever directed a film where I haven't made five passes through the movie, and that takes a long time.

I grew up on film sets but more around the process of making films. I saw a lot of the editing process and the writing process, which takes years. That really affected me growing up, that side of it.

Four months of preparation and about 12 hours of shooting turned into about 30 seconds of screen time.

Most of the films I've done were ruined in the postproduction, not during filming.

I liked film-making, but the most difficult thing was the editing. I found it tormentingly difficult.

A lot can change in the editing room.

It takes time to write a script and properly make the film and edit it.

It's very rare to watch a movie and think, 'That's the movie we shot!' So many things happen, with edits and things getting cut out.

I believe you make a movie three times: once in the development process - putting the ingredients like the script, cast and crew together - once in the shooting process, and once in the editing process.

If I walk into the editing room, it's six hours lost. I'm massaging frames. I'm, like, 'Oh, take six frames off that shot. Hit the music cue right there.' I will drive everybody crazy if left to my own devices in that room. So I try to do everything I can by staying out of the way.

You don't have your film finished when you have your director's cut finished. It's just a bunch of green screen.

You do need to edit yourself as you shoot because you have fewer options in a smaller movie. In other words, when I'm shooting a big movie, and I got an 85 day shooting schedule or more, then I'm saying I have enough time to shoot option A and B and C and D for every scene.

Every time I hear, Cut. Print, something cold and electrical goes off in my head, because I'm never going to change that film.

When you think of a movie, most people imagine a two hour finished, polished product. But to get to that two hour product, it can take hundreds or thousands of people many months of full time work.