Michael Apted Quotes

My background is sociology. Combined with my graphic approach, if I could do some film projects, I think I'd be very good at making documentaries eventually, but people don't think of me for that, of course. But dialogue is something I know I can be good at.

In documentary films, you're a storyteller using found objects. You still have to have a story arc and all the elements that make a good story. It really helped me mature as a storyteller.

I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go.

I think the greatest thing about making a documentary is your ability to just follow the story and the subject.

You should bear in mind that almost all my documentaries are feature films in disguise.

I don't normally make documentaries. I'm a drama director. I've made a few short docs, but I don't like talking heads or 'voice of God' narrators.

In documentary films, the most difficult thing to achieve is to make something complex appear simple.

I don't think there's so much difference between making documentaries and feature films. I think it's even harder to make documentaries.

To me, form is not something that you can plan beforehand, especially for a documentary. You can't write it or sketch it. It requires a confrontation with reality, with history, with ethics and morals. After identifying good content, you have to find the right form to express that content.

Critics can say what they like about the films, but very often, there's a certain expectation of documentaries that they're supposed to be like PowerPoint presentations. I see documentaries as movies. So when I see some critics writing that we could have done without the recreations altogether - well, perhaps.

When I started my filmmaking journey 17 years ago, I honestly didn't know what a documentary film was.

Feature filmmaking is a different kind of complication as documentary comes in the editing room.

Doing a documentary is about discovering, being open, learning, and following curiosity.

I didn't realize that, in doing a documentary, there is this process of discovery. It's not like a film or a play with a set script. It sort of reveals itself.

Some documentaries are made by people who are driven more by one particular story, or have different backgrounds or ambitions, but I'm always looking for projects that let me be the best filmmaker I can be, and to be stretched and grow further.

It's hard not to want to become Ken Burns at times. I'm interested in being a Ken Burns who reaches that 17-year-old who goes to the multiplex just to see a good story well-told. And if there's history in it, all the better.

I'm a documentary filmmaker, I know what it means to craft a story, especially when you've shot a lot of material.

I'm not a documentarian. I'm not a photojournalist.

I'm not necessarily scanning for clues when I make documentaries.

I love documentaries. I love the format. I've been doing them for a long time.

The making of the documentary is an involving and collaborative process where you go deeper unlike in movies where you just borrow someone else's script.

Of course, when you're making a documentary, you don't have actors, but nonetheless, there is a writing process that does take place in the editing room.

When I watch my early documentaries, they're very eclectic. They don't follow any particular [pattern]. I would have gotten thrown out of film school because I didn't. I was just putting them together somehow as the spirit moved me, following my nose, thinking I was brilliant.

A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper.

I came from a background of directing behind-the-scenes documentaries.