Leigh Brackett Quotes

I think it's always good for the author to stay a good cattle prod's distance from the actual moviemaking.

There comes a time as you continue to write and work on scripts and screenplays where you realize that you have opinions about the next step of the process, and you kind of want more control over the translation from page to screen.

All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.

To me the only real star of the movie is the writer. And I work with writers very closely, from outline to first draft and on to the seventh draft, whatever it takes. Then my job is to support the director to make the best movie we can. Some producers try to go past them, but my job is to support them.

I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.

When you write and direct your own film, you basically know exactly what you want. Or you hope to. For the studio, it actually can make life a little easier, because if you have a bunch of questions, they only need to call one person.

Capra always wanted a screenwriter with him, even on the soundstage. The writer had to be there at his side.

It's good to work with a writer-director.

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.

I definitely had some heated but extremely productive chats with screenwriter Justin Monjo, but while it's my story, it's their movie, so I have to allow for compression and poetic license.

And it is a folly to try to craft a novel for the screen, to write a novel with a screen contract in mind.

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.

Filmmaking is the ultimate team sport.

It's madness to hand in a script to a director, leave them alone, and for the director not to want the writer there with rehearsals and the shoot.

When I make a film - I direct my own film, I write my own script - that's what I want to hear from the audience. 'Oh, thank you, Jackie!'

I wasn't trained as a writer-director. And the projects I write are difficult to finish.

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.

For 'So Cold the River,' I'm actually working on adapting the book with Scott Silver, who was just nominated for an Oscar for 'The Fighter,' and who also wrote '8 Mile,' which I think is a terrific screenplay. The chance to work with Scott is a tremendous pleasure and I'm learning a lot.

I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.

A script is only as good as the director who's making it.

To be quite honest, I've been very blessed when I've worked with Hollywood. The studios that have purchased my work to be adapted to film have really liked the work and wanted to stay as close as they could to what the book was.

When I'm writing a movie, it's usually pretty close to what the movie is going to be, which is just a luxury of being a writer-director.

I want to make my own films from my own scripts based on stories I want to tell, but they take time to put together.

You get spoiled as a novelist because you get to be the director and the editor, and you play all the parts, but as a screenwriter, you are a bit down the ladder.

Any filmmaking, any film is a collaborative process. There's always a lot of people working on things together.