Pete Docter Quotes

I got involved in script development from the beginning. It was nice to see how a film gets made right from the beginning. It was quite hands-on for me.

Inherently, making a movie is tough because there's so much anticipation when it happens - even if everything goes well.

'Alice' took over two years to make and took a great deal of planning, obviously much more than usual. We spent so much more time prepping the film, and that was unique for us.

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

I never storyboard. I hate it. I don't understand why so many directors want to make comic strips of their films.

I have considered the directing, actually. Not so much the writing. That is not really interesting, but the directing is really interesting to me.

The way we work at Pixar is we write the script, but then we quickly move on into story reel, which is basically like a comic-book version of the film. And then we do our own dialogue and music and sound effects, all in an effort to be able to basically sit in the theater and watch the movie before we shoot it, essentially.

I have always meticulously storyboarded my films from beginning to end.

I don't do storyboarding, ever; I'm not interested in that.

I did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay. It was probably harder for a regular director. He probably had to read the script the night before shooting started.

You can write a script, but that's just a starting point as a cartoonist. The heart of the process comes when you start to draw it, and you work out how to lay the page out, how best to tell the story.

I don't believe in development. I believe in pre-pre-production, so when I sit down with an idea for a movie, I'm thinking I'm going to make this film. I don't think about anything else.

I learned a lot about filmmaking from my dad. Starting when I was a child, I would listen to my dad as an actor, writer, director and producer talking about films - you know what the treatment would be in the opening, in the middle, and in the ending.

The experience of an actual film from idea to screen will teach me more than most books and lectures.

To get the film in your head on the screen, first you have to take it out of your head and explain it to everyone who is working with you. This will take work and planning.

I've always been interested in directing, writing, and producing, so when I went behind the scenes, it was like a whole new world that I got to experience.

I don't think I write differently when I'm writing a screenplay, as opposed to a stage play or a teleplay. Maybe if I were in a film class and there was time to think about it, we could point out differences.

I always wanted to write movies that I'd direct. I didn't come at it from a writing standpoint more than a directing standpoint, except that growing up, I didn't have the opportunity to shoot as much as I did to write.

The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.

I actually think storyboards are great. I don't draw well enough to do them myself. I've only used storyboards a couple of times.

One of the most important tools that a filmmaker has are his/her notes.

It was important on The Shipping News to have my house far enough away from each location so I had this time in the morning to think about my shots and still remain open to surprises once I got to the set.

I have a notebook, and I know what decisions will be made in pre-production. Everything is pre-determined in the pre-production period. I visually design the whole thing, and I know when things will happen.

The first thing I put down on paper is a storyboard, like a film director.

I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.