Dean Devlin Quotes

HBO is really famous for hiring good people and staying out of their way until they ask for help, or need it. And that reputation is earned.

I don't believe that an animation studio should be an executive-driven studio.

And I'm not a micromanagement guy. I prefer to spend my time doing other stuff than that.

I like relaxed sets. I like to feel that I can make a mistake without feeling like I'm costing somebody money. I like a sense of freedom. I like it when people are open and are willing to let you do your work.

Sony is the coolest studio. They are really amazing. I think part of it comes from they're not an American corporation. They don't work by quite the same rules. And their studio heads have a lot of autonomy.

Good is the director who lets you do what you have to do.

Of course I have an opinion on many things but I don't micromanage.

Netflix is amazing 'cause they trust the creator to do their job, and they trust us to do our job. They're really smart and just let us do our thing and deliver a great job.

One of the things I'm adamant about as a bandleader is not micromanaging. I'm an advocate for the concept of allowing everyone to be fully vested in what they're doing, so everyone contributes whatever they're inspired to contribute.

You try and pick good people and avoid micromanaging them thereafter.

Directors tend to kind of let me do what I want to do.

I financed and made my own films from the start. My path has been autonomous and independent, so I don't have any horror stories about glass ceilings and expectations and tense studio meetings.

The truth is, we were sick of, every time we finished a movie, having to start all over again from nothing, going to a studio, pitching an idea, setting up a new office.

I need to have a great deal of control and the ability to share my control with my collaborators and grant them the freedom and the quality of work I think these people deserve. If I don't have those elements, I walk away.

It never worked having a management style where someone would try to tell us what to do. It's never been the sort of group that we are.

In this business, you have so little control over things, but one of the things you can control is who you work with.

We have an audience, the ability to fund our own projects, own our own projects, the ability to display our projects unencumbered by any middlemen. That's the perfect scenario.

I'm not a micromanager. I don't believe in that.

There's nothing worse than a director who feels more like a cop than a comrade, so I try to never give orders or create an environment where it's 'my way or the highway,' because actually allowing talented people to bring their originality and insight always brings more depth and complexity than if everyone has to do what you tell them to!

I don't micromanage the interiors. People ask me to and I say no. I don't want to control everything.

The only way you can really deal with creative people is with very loose reins.

There were a couple of times where I shot things, or started off in one mode and thought, "Well, I really didn't want to do that." I would just change my mind. And frankly, I don't think anybody really cared. I didn't have some producer that had given me $10 million, demanding results. I could just kind of do whatever I thought was right, and move in that way.

I had complete freedom. They [Netflix] knew roughly what I was doing.

The master who fears the choices his people will make enough to take those choices away isn't worth serving.

Trusting people to be creative and constructive when given more freedom does not imply an overly optimistic belief in the perfectibility of human nature. It is, rather, belief that the inevitable errors and sins of the human condition are far better overcome by individuals working together in an environment of trust and freedom and mutual respect than by individuals working under a multitude of rules, regulations, and restraints imposed upon them by another group of imperfect individuals.