Dustin Lance Black Quotes

Film is a very collaborative medium. If you're smart enough, you learn how to maintain your vision while drawing resourcefully from all the people around you.

A big part of the job of being a showrunner is, in my way of thinking, being a good communicator because there's really no other way to have hope for getting what you want, at the end of the day.

And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made.

I'm just gonna make movies the best I can, do the festival thing or whatever can come. I plan on working with a lot of the same guys over and over again. I hope the majority of us can stick together.

I believe the director's primary role is to create an atmosphere where his company can be created.

Being a director, just to begin with, is just, I think, one of the hardest jobs just because you have to work in every way. You have to work with actors, you have to be involved with the producers and the writing and the action. Every department comes to you; you have to deal with everything.

No, I wouldn't direct a movie, no. I couldn't. I don't have the patience for it, I don't have the people skills. You have to be clever. I'm not really clever in that kind of way. And you have to be able to manipulate people, but at the same time allow them to feel like they are manipulating you, to get the kind of movie that you want.

I like to come to the set with very strong ideas and strong opinions about how to do things. And I like also dealing with somebody who's like that.

The producer, in effect, has to work as a translator. You form a very tight relationship with the director and writer from the beginning, and then you are constantly communicating to the various people that begin to come into the process, as you are trying to manage to hold on to a vision that needs to be communicated over a long period of time.

The best filmmakers have a very familial attitude in sort of embracing the set, beyond the cast, with the wardrobe, and the hair and makeup, and the props, just making everybody feel very familial.

You have to have that core creative team around you who's going to support your vision, and challenge and evolve it.

I would say the most important aspect of direction is that you, as a director, and your producer need to be on the same page, the same line of thinking. If that doesn't happen in the beginning of the film, then that will show in the final product 100 percent.

I try to just focus on what feels right to me when I am conceiving it, conceptualizing, designing, etc. and then talk it through with the team and listen to what they have to say. This kind of thing is a team effort, and working with a great team is the most important part of filmmaking for me.

When you do a movie, it's like going on a journey. It's really like the director is the captain of the ship, and that energy, everybody feels.

I like working with writer-directors because you can solve problems right there.

Collaboration is just, really, a group of people getting in a room with their eye on a very similar prize and wanting to come out with the same show. The director, ultimately, is the guy in front of whom the buck stops. So, he has to have the courage to prevail. But, he has got to have a huge amount of respect for his collaborators.

And 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll' was a very transitional film for me in that I was one of the producers and you know, came up with the idea with the writer and the producer, as well. But, it was a very collaborative event. You know, I really love working in that way.

I'm proud of 'Sinister' because Scott and Cargill did a great job on the movie, and I set up a framework for them to make what they wanted to make. They gave me the idea, and I figured out how to get it out into the world.

I don't want egos and personalities on the set that make it more difficult to make the film. I don't want people who take the focus away from the movie and the ideas behind the movie.

Films are not mathematics - that's the first thing you need to understand. At least, that's how I feel. They are not words on paper. Films are made with people, with teams and with individual bundles of creativity coming together to fulfill the vision of an individual who is the director of the film.

Fashion is much more collaborative than one might think. You have to have an idea and vision, and you have to communicate that vision to a team of people, and you have to create an environment that allows those people to give the best that they can give.

I have so much respect for directors. It's a tremendous amount of pressure; you have to keep steadfast and keep what you know is right.

If a script comes together, and you end up liking the people who are part of it, that's when you can make magic happen. It's a huge combination of trying to find something you think you can deliver on and a director you think you can collaborate with to make a good picture.

There's a whole system in Hollywood where the director never speaks to the studio, but I like to engage them in a discussion. I listen.

I'm better suited to be a director, I think. I see myself as the general author. I hate the word 'auteur,' because it sounds so solitary when filmmaking is anything but solitary.