Rod Serling Quotes

It's not that there aren't people who care creatively in the world of television, but there's always a bit more time in making a movie. I always feel films are more of a creative journey.

I have as much artistic freedom in my television work as I have in my films.

Every medium has its own kind of freedom. I don't want to just cross from one to the next. I want to enjoy the freedom each one has. Sometimes, you can do something for TV that you can't do in the cinema.

TV has a longer narrative, and TV's more like short stories. So there's less rules with TV; you can make it a little bit different. [With] movies, the medium has more constraints, so it was just about what stories are the most cinematic and the best resolution.

Film is very much about sitting around and talking about ideas, and that's the stuff that I love, but I haven't experienced that yet in the television that I've done so far. It makes me long for movies again because, creatively, I always have a much more fulfilling experience there.

I prefer film to TV because of the amount of time film affords you that TV doesn't (though theater is probably my favorite and the scariest place of all).

I suppose directing on set is the most fun because it's a good crack and you feel you're on the battlefield whereas writing is a fairly solitary undertaking.

Television is a lot of fun. It's faster-paced. The schedule is really desirable, I guess. But as far as films go, and I've only done a couple; film is like a definitive beginning, middle and end. You know your character's arch.

In film, I think that you do have a little more time to invest in the character compared to television, where you are shooting from the hip and making quick choices. It is the speed of things that is the major difference - certainly in my experience.

I think the quality of television, given the amount of time you have, how short you have, is proportionally so much better than most movies.

But short films are not inferior, just different. I think the short gives a freedom to film-makers. What's appealing is that you don't have as much responsibility for storytelling and plot. They can be more like a portrait, or a poem.

The great thing about being an actor in a film is that you're able to start knowing exactly where you're going to finish and really paint something in between. You can work to know the arc you need to build. Whereas in television, it is open-ended, and you're constantly guessing. There are pros and cons to both.

With TV, you have so much to get done during the day that you don't really have a lot of time to feel your way through it. I know before I walk on the set exactly what I'm going to do. With film you can kind of find your way in it a little more, play with it some.

When it's working, what acting is really about is getting into the essence of a moment in a creative, joyous way - through whatever frees you up.

I'm going to insult a whole industry here, but it seems like TV is for people who can't do film. I'm not talking about actresses; I'm talking about lighting people. Lighting on TV is just so... it's sinful, it really is.

I like to do a movie, to be on it 8, 10 weeks. It evolves as you're working on it. Little things come to you every day. It's a slow process, and when you have to pack it into a short period of time, which you do for television, the experience is not one that I cherish. So if it's going to be television, it's really got to be the right thing.

I was involved with some great things in television that I could never have done in film.

Movies take a long time because movies take a long damn time to put work into. Whereas music, you don't have as much time. I didn't realize that.

Motion pictures are a director's medium. Broadway is a writer's medium. Television is a producer's medium. I picked a medium I could control.

Cinema is a form of art, and like every other art form, cinema also needs freedom of expression.

It seems so cliched and obvious, but write the movie you want to see in the theater.

I would rather explore the medium of films than television.

I actually prefer film to TV, but I don't know why. I think there's just a different energy.

Being on television is a little constraining. You spend six to eight months filming, and you get stuck in that gear. I feel like doing movies is a lot more my style.

The working hours are easy in films, while there is always an anxiety on television. So the energies are very different.