Hal Needham Quotes

I know my audience, and they, in turn, know my cinema. When I pick a subject, it's for a family audience. I shoot and edit my films keeping them in mind. I'm dead sure about the product that bears my name.

I have a particular taste, I do films according to it and promote it accordingly.

I don't make movies because I think audiences will want to go see them.

The one thing I'm proud of as a filmmaker is that people are entitled not to like my films - that's the privilege of the public - but I think I have my own imprint.

There are only so many movies you can direct. And yet there are movies that I want to make sure make it to the screen in as honest a way as possible.

My sense of responsibility to the audience is to screen things that they would never see in a local theater.

I do have a responsibility, but I would make the most boring films in the world if I woke up every morning worrying about my social responsibility.

Even when 'Kaakha Kaakha' was released, there were people who gave it an average rating and said they couldn't figure out what was happening. Three days after its release, the producer called me and asked me to remove all of Jothika's scenes from the film. I told him; in that case, you can also remove my name from the director's slot.

When films are so hero centric, and directors are dancing to the tunes of the hero, where is the Kannada voice or song?

If you didn't get it right and then you have to release a director's cut to undo what the studio made you release, I don't know, either it's some marketing thing for them to get more money or the director didn't do his job.

I'm not signing on to direct 'Black Panther.' I think I'll just say we had different ideas about what the story would be. Marvel has a certain way of doing things, and I think they're fantastic, and a lot of people love what they do. I loved that they reached out to me.

I attempt to create a form of seriocomic entertainment to either delight, enlighten, or disgust, whichever you'd like. In terms of making motion pictures, I write and direct and act. I guess you'd say I'm a filmmaker.

The Marvel experience was particularly wrenching because I was sort of given absolute freedom while we were shooting, and then in post, it turned into a different movie.

The worst thing you can do after a test screening is slash it for the lowest common denominator.

No film should be meaningless.

To me, 'director's cut' means that what was released before was somebody else's cut. That, to me, always implies that what was released wasn't what the director wanted.

If you can get your movie made the way you want to get it made, no matter what the end result is going to be, if people are going to see it, that's awesome.

The reason I took on directing a film myself was because, no matter how skilful a director was or how much I liked the film, there'd always be beats where I'd go, 'Oh... well, that's skilful, in a way, but it doesn't get the flavour I'd intended in the script.'

The thing that I probably enjoy the most and also am the best at in whatever art form I'm working in is being the protector of the emotional experience of the audience.

You have to realize, making movies is the weirdest thing you could ever do. It's a contrivance, but you're attempting to reach people's hearts in the dark, and there are so many factors that are out of your control.

Films are a director's medium. We're all stemming from the director.

I decided that I have certain taste in cinema and I will take it forward. I know there is an audience for such cinema.

I think that, again, filmmaking is the director's medium in the end, and the best thing a producer can do is stay out of the way and support the director one hundred percent.

You can't expect to connect with everybody, and that's all right. The more I make films, I'm learning that you don't have to make films for everybody. A film can be made for a smaller group of people than that, and it still warrants an existence.

I always put myself in the audience's place and see if, as a viewer, I would want to see the film. If yes, then I want to know who's directing it, what my character is, and if it's impactful. If all these points fall in place, I'll do the film. If not, then I won't think twice before saying no.