Shankar Mahadevan Quotes

Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited - that has music and rhythm and time.

Film-makers must decide what story to tell and how to tell it.

Making a film is like making a mixtape. You're collecting all this stuff and putting your favorite stuff into it: you have actors that you like, characters that you're interested in, moments you want to explore, themes you want to deal with, music that you want to put in. It's a pastiche of all these things that deal with how you see the world.

For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy.

What I realized is that it doesn't matter how big or small your film is. The actual filmmaking process, the actual storytelling, it's still the same thing. It's still all about creating characters that you like and creating moments that get you excited or get you tense.

If you have a great story, any film will work.

You need actors and performers, but there has to be content in a film.

Films don't always tell a story; some films can achieve effect just by being razzle-dazzle or rock n' roll. That's part of the fare that's out there. And that's okay. For me, I place more value on a story.

Film is very condensed.

Every film is a puzzle really, from an editorial point of view.

One day I had an idea for a movie. Everything came after that.

Genre aside, I'd like to make a film about people.

It doesn't matter to me if it has a surprise ending or not. I usually go for the material or the project.

The technology available for film-making now is incredible, but I am a big believer that it's all in the story.

A good script and perfect casting, that's 90 percent of the work.

When you make a film you usually make a film about an idea.

If I start paying attention to the mechanics of a film while watching it, then it's generally a bad film.

I spent about a year and a half doing technical post work on 'The Fountain'. Although I do like the process, I think my favorite part of filmmaking is the actors.

There are three things that are important for a film. Number one is story, number two is story, number three is story. Good actors can save a bad script and make it bearable, but good actors can't make a bad script good - they can just make it bearable.

I don't know - music in film, for me, is not another part of a soundtrack; it is something that also helps to approach a character, to foresee the type of image - you see what I mean - it's like a part of the process.

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.

No other aspect of filmmaking has tempted me to do a film other than the script and the story itself.

Every stage of filmmaking's important while you're doing it, so I spend most of my time figuring out how to tell the story. I have all these stories and ideas, but it's how to tell the story.

My plan B has always been to make a film about people who talk a lot.

I never watch the dailies. What I usually do is have a look at the rough or final cut, and I just get something from the story. Sometimes I start composing even before the director has shot anything. The dailies don't help me at all.