Dustin Lance Black Quotes

What I did was I completed the half-hour film, but before really showing it, I wrote two more sections for a potential feature film which I didn't think would really happen, but at least I had it in case.

I shot this wonderful picture called American Saint a couple of years ago, which is still looking for release.

I just try to make the best film possible, and once the movie's done, we deal with the DVD.

I learned some big lessons on my first film, a horror film which was never released in the U.S., even though we sold it to Harvey Weinstein for a lot of money.

I just hope, every now and then, the studios still slip one of my movies in.

My Toussaint [Louverture] film is in limbo. We still hope after all this time that we can find another way to get this film done.

I never really feel like I'm sure a film's gonna happen until I'm maybe halfway through.

Once the movie's over, there's not much point. When the thing is edited, mixed, and color-corrected, and you've finished it... In my case, I never read anything about it, I never think about it.

Making a film, I've learned, can be an exhausting process, due to the need for backing, distribution, etc.

No film ever ends up exactly as you would like it to, but with minor exceptions, THX came out pretty much as I had visualized it, thanks to some excellent assistance -- and a whole lot of luck.

The moment that you start to read a script, you're watching the movie in your mind, and that's the one moment that you have. Then, you go off to make the movie and you become so lost in it.

My first film I made, "Permanent Vacation," we shot in 1979 for like $12,000, part of which I got a fake car loan for that Amos Poe told me you could do that. And, yeah, I had no idea what I was doing. It was just like, well, we're going to try and do this. Partly because I had been following Amos Poe and Eric Mitchell around for about a year, and I worked on some of Eric's films as a sound recordist and stuff.

I was not, and am not, officially a producer of that film [I am love] but the work of what a producer does I learned at that stage and to a certain extent I've been a producer ever since.

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.

It's so many different elements to a film. Just learning the ins and outs and how the machine works.

I want to make good films; I don't want to make films for the moment.

I find myself more interested in producing. Not because I'm interested in the financial side of it, but just getting together the right elements to make a film, that side of production. I would not be good on the financial side. It would be a disaster from the beginning.

I want to have the illegitimate child of independent film making and the budget to make it. That's my aspiration.

A movie is a creative process from its conception, through its writing, to its execution, to the editing. I think with the best films there is some kind of contribution from one person all the way through that. The best films are made by people who write, direct, and edit, so there's continuity.

If I have an idea I want to put in a movie, I know what camera will make that look best, and I have ideas for future projects and stuff I'd like to build for those. I think it's just part of how I work, though.

I've always seen it to be a privilege to make movies. It's a really expensive, creative medium.

There were obvious budgetary and time constraint differences. With Jamie Marks is Dead, we were operating on a pretty small finance level. So it was definitely run-and-gun, 16-hour days, every day. I would come back, and I was so exhausted I would fall asleep in my clothes. Obviously, with The Giver we had a little bit more time to take the full three months. So that was different, but in both there was still a creative environment, and by that I mean that it was still collaborative, performance was still valued, and it wasn't lost in the money.

No film is made without the people behind the lens. Of course, most people, even I, tend to look at films in the most simplistic way, and say, "Wow, so-and-so is in this film." We talk about who's in it, as opposed to who got it made. But there are financial and technical aspects which go along with it, that should be addressed and acknowledged, including those minorities who are doing excellent work as well.

Sometimes little things can prolong an experience in a way that you run over budget. It's very scientific; a lot of people don't understand the science that goes behind making a film.

When I say that it's taken us [with Luca Guadagnino ] 11 years to make this film, what I mean is that it was 11 years ago that we started to talk about a kind of cinema that we wanted to make together.