Jason Blum Quotes

I produce the way I would love to be produced: In ways to create the best conditions to make your movie, but also to create a space in which the director calls the shots.

I love doing stand-up. It's so self-contained - you go there, you do it, you go home - but with telly, there are too many people involved with it with opinions. You have a product, and everyone wants to change it.

I just wanted to do this all Australian film and we didn't want to give creative control to overseas 'cause whoever comes on my sets, whether you're sweeping the floor or an actor, it doesn't matter who comes up with the ideas, it's a collaboration.

It's impossible to control the reception of your work - the only thing you can control is the experience of writing itself, and the work you create.

It's really hard as a screenwriter, you feel like you have a vision and then you turn it over to a director and you have to let it go.

When the uncreative tell the creative what to do, it stops being art.

I think there's a tendency with actor/directors to imagine themselves playing every part and trying to get people to follow their rhythm, their tempo, their pace. I've learned now to just love being at the center of this creative swirl.

A producer has to want you. And if the producer trusts you and asks for your vision, it frees you up so much, not having to explain or fight for every decision. You're allowed to create.

As the filmmaker, yes, I have to look out for everybody. But I don't have to know everybody's approach.

The worst thing you can do to anybody trying to be creative is to demand participation in their vision.

The images [of The Kite Runner grafic] were created in Fabio Celoni's mind. I chose to let him take the lead. Fabio and I did exchange an e-mail or two, but it was my intention to step out of the way and let his artistic instincts take over.

I think, as the writer, you're always going to mourn something [left out of a film]. But you also just want to know there's a good reason for it being left out. On the whole, you want to give something to somebody creative. The worst thing you can do is say, "Here, be creative, but do it like I want you to do it." I was always very mindful of that.

I never know if I'm the builder or architect. The role shifts all the time. But what I have come to conclude is that the script is the muse.

When I started off as a choreographer, I had to do songs, which I may have wanted to do differently, but directors had their own inputs to give. But now, I take liberty to decide my own dance steps as well.

I haven't been a director-for-hire for any project. I work with people who appreciate that, understand that, and want to work that way.

We got full artistic integrity and autonomy over what we were doing, and that was the main important thing that kept our band alive.

It doesn't matter even if I am slow or fast as long as my films are honest and carries my integrity.

As a screenwriter, you always have frustrations. It's just the nature of the job, and you have to live with it. Your vision is not going to be the same as the director's vision. It doesn't mean one is better or worse; it means they're different.

I think everything that I've done, I've been involved with for longer. Either you develop it from scratch, or you take something, and you develop it, and you work on the script, but I'm not sure how good I'd be at just sort of taking a piece of material and being a director for hire like that.

As a writer, it's very difficult to just hand your script over to someone else, especially if you have to watch them hurt it, and that's when I decided I would direct my own work.

I always think that you should never, ever force a producer to do something with a song that they don't think they can do something fantastic with, I think it's a stupid idea to force it, even if you think it's your best song.

Every day the Daniels [Kwan and Scheinert] would come up with some amazing solution and [make it easy] to put yourself in their hands. There's something really lovely about knowing you're working with directors who know exactly what they want and exactly what they're looking for, and they're not going to move on until they have it. That, as an actor, frees you up a lot because you can [try different approaches] and they'll only use what's appropriate.

I want to make decisions as to where I want to go as an artist, and to get to it in my own way

The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward.

If I set out to sculpt a standing man and it becomes a lying woman, I know I am making art.