Barry Barish Quotes

Everyone knows of great projects that were too dependent on a charismatic individual, or simply too expensive to be replicated.

The size of the budget doesn't make that much of a difference because the kind of issues I have on a low budget film I I have on a big budget film as well, but they're just much bigger.

Projects are usually undertaken to either solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity. The probability that the project - even if precisely executed - will complete on time, on budget, and on performance is typically small. Project management is utilized to increase this probability. So in a sense, project management is risk management.

Executives need ample flexibility to respond to the market. That means both reducing costs and increasing innovation.

I do not need a producer. I need only a good production manager. I need only a man who will give me money.

For me, the scale of the budget is part of the creative process. 'Swingers' is the movie it is because we made it for exactly the right budget. Had it been made for a higher number, it would not have been as imaginative as we had to make it, given the budget constraints we had.

The first thing I learned as a producer is that you have very little control over the life of a project. Anything can stall a film from financing to scheduling to casting. Things fall apart all the time. Don't waste time on something that just won't get made. Try to have as many projects going at one time as you can handle.

The size of the budget doesn't make that much of a difference because the kind of issues I have on a low budget film I have on a big budget film as well, but they're just much bigger.

There are so little outtakes from the Joy Division era. We didn't have much money. You couldn't be very generous in recording, so we were very thrifty in how we recorded. Everything was very, very well looked after financially because we just couldn't afford it.

I know firsthand the complexities of leading an enterprise through business and technology transformation. It takes intense focus, a strong drive, and a clearly communicated vision to inspire and take an organization from where they are, to where they need to be - or where they want to go.

As a studio executive, I took the approach that people are competent until proven otherwise. But when you make a movie, because there is so little time to fix things when they break, you have to almost come to it with the mindset that everyone is incompetent until proven otherwise.

Not all of our movies work, but we take shots, and we're able to do that because we really stick to low budgets.

I enjoy juggling four or five different projects in the air and finding connections and disconnections between them.

I have been working on one film at a time. One film recovers a little cost and that helps me move on to the next one.

In management terms, directing opera certainly prepares you for a film set: the magnitude of it, the experts in other fields that you have to call on. Both are massive ensemble jobs in which there's incredible pressure to get things done on time and on budget - so much so that making the wrong decision may be better than making no decision at all.

I don't believe in projects of more than three years.

The biggest difference between the private sector and public sector is in the private sector, there's a sense of urgency because you have customers and you have competitors. Whereas in government, one of your major objectives is to not make any really big mistakes.

When I left university I got a job with Shell on their graduate scheme. One of my roles was as a commercial manager for liquid natural gas shipping, project economics and contract negotiation.

I don't think I've ever worked on anything that wasn't way bigger than we expected. That's all the way back to working on fighting games at Paradox. Everything seems to balloon when more and more people get involved.

As a CEO, you have to take the active action to force most of your resources to stand idle from time to time - or go bankrupt.

Keep the team as small as possible. Having been on several of these mega-projects, they seem to grow magically. People are attracted to the project like moths to a flame.

I've always juggled a lot of projects because at least half the projects you do get shelved. So you have to do a lot of things in order for things to move forward.

Engineering is the art of managing scarcity - it's easy to design and build a massive bridge that will last forever if cost is not an issue. Similarly, to build a new company, you must manage scarce resources.

I don't even have a management team. I have people managing my work but there are limitations when it comes to projects.

If the business were a play, Act One is, 'Woohoo, bright and bushy-tailed. We're going to make something great!' Act Two is, 'We're six months behind on back-end development.'