Errol Morris Quotes

Making a film is beyond exciting. It's so exciting, it's exhausting.

The experience of making a movie is far removed from watching the end result. It's exciting, but it still makes me squirm.

You're watching the movie for the first time when you're working with the actors in front of the camera. You don't think about how the audience will react. You discover the film.

I just feel my body clock is different when it comes to making films than other directors. Being on set, and sweating, that feeling eases me more than actually when the movie's over; being on set, moving around, to me feels more relaxing than being done with the movie.

So you know, as a filmmaker you have to get it all right in the writing stage. After that, one has to leave it on the judgement of your trusted ones and the audiences.

When I make a movie, it's almost a relief to get shooting 'cause the hell is over, or part of the hell is over.

The hardest thing for me about making movies, and that included 'M*A*S*H' because it was made like a movie, was starting and stopping.

The reason I wanted to start directing is that as an actor I felt I came into a job late. There's a whole team of people who have been working on it for months before you start. You have this really intense period of filming and then you leave it, knowing that the director will work on it for another few months.

Normally, if you're lucky, the idea of a film you have in your head is more or less what you get back when you see it after the editing and the whole post-production process.

I like to direct movies, but I don't like to goof around for eight years talking about it.

There's something about taking a film from concept to script, through production, and then to see the final thing happening in the edit phase. It's almost like a miracle in the making.

When you think of a movie, most people imagine a two hour finished, polished product. But to get to that two hour product, it can take hundreds or thousands of people many months of full time work.

When we shoot 24, there are so many things I have to worry about, from the script to technical things to my performance, that I don't have a second to be bored or take anything for granted. We produce 24 hours of film a season, which is like making 12 movies.

On a television show, you basically make a movie a week. Movies take three months - it's crazy. They're so slow, it's like vacation to me.

My dad always produces, and I would always sit in producers' meetings with him. I like the whole thing of putting a movie together. I think that's very exciting.

Making a film, setting it up and getting it cast and getting it together, is not an easy thing.

I'm anxious to make another film.

Making a movie is a lot of problem solving.

I got a lot of energy from directing the film 'Ladies In Lavender.' You wonder if you have the stamina because as an actor you can lounge around the trailer during the scenes you're not in, but as a director, you're there from first thing in the morning to last thing at night every day of the week. I found it incredibly energising.

I think the joy of wanting to direct is having that nervous anxiety knowing your film is about to be shown and you're sitting right there with everyone.

There's some things that you learn as you're shooting, and as you're editing that are key, because when you start you don't have the brain that can finish it. You don't really know what it is, and that's the key job; figuring out what you actually have, not what you're dreaming of having.

I think any filmmaker looks back and thinks, 'Boy, if we only had four hours more on that day when the sun was going down,' or, 'If we only spent more time and went back.'

I love writing, and I love postproduction. That's great, because you start to reassemble the film, and you sit there, and you start to really put the film together, finally. The shooting of it is the most stressful part of the process.

Great things that can happen when you're doing a movie.

Well, I think every film student goes into film school thinking they want to write and direct their own movies, and they don't realize how much goes into it, and what a process it is.