Penelope Spheeris Quotes

Most people who've had a big hit movie like 'Paranormal Activity,' the next thing they say is, 'I want to make a $100 million movie.' I have no interest in making more expensive movies.

It's nice when you're working in Hollywood and there's a movie you'd like to see that no one is making anymore. You make it yourself.

A film like 'Good Night And Good Luck,' you make that for $7 million because you know it's a black-and-white film, and it's not an easy sell. If you make it for $7 million, then everybody can have a chance to make a little bit of money, and you get to make the film you want to make.

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

If you want to make movies you need to think on a micro-micro level and figure out how to make them for nothing with people who really care about your movie and really want to make it.

When we do a movie with the studios, they wouldn't be asking us to do it, I don't think, if it was a movie they wanted to get into themselves. What you see is what you get with us, so they let us do what we want to do.

When you make a movie independently, you raise the money beforehand, and then you make the movie kind of by yourself.

My dream is just to make zero-budget movies for the rest of my life, because I love that environment.

I feel that if you want to make films, you have to be willing to make it without a fee. You get a deferment, I guess.

The only chance for a guy like me is to make a decent picture for a reasonable budget. If it brings in a profit for investors, maybe I'll have the opportunity to make something else.

It's just hard to get an independent film made.

I didn't have a lot of independent film connections. It really took until the digital film revolution came along that I realized that I could do it myself.

You don't always just have to do an indie movie to feel like you're controlling it with a few people that you really have connected with, creatively. You can do it on a bigger scale.

I'll tell you what, I had complete control on 'Unleashed.' I directed, produced, chose the musician, picked the costumes, and everything. I never had anyone saying, 'I don't like this and I don't like that.' The studio, Universal, were easy. It was this weird movie no one cared about.

For me, the movies I like are all independent. And getting an independent feature made, it's like you get down to the selling organs part, and it just loses some of its luster.

I believe in making movies very inexpensively; I think that way too much money is spent on making movies. Enough movies are being made, but not enough experimental ones.

With 'House Party 4,' I did it with my own money, and I sold it to New Line.

I really do like the independent way of working. You don't get much studio intrusion compared to when you're working on a big Hollywood film where there tends to always be loads of people interfering. The only problem, though, with independent features is that they are hard to sell.

Filmmakers, they tell me they want to make movies. I say, 'Good, go out, buy a $500 camera, get some friends and make a movie. Don't go to Hollywood. Stay wherever you are.'

You end up giving up half your salary every time you make a movie because you need the money to make the movie you have in your head.

I want to get into producing and writing more for myself - setting up my own films and seeing what kind of personal touch I can put on movies, as opposed to just being in them.

At the end of the day, the less money you have, the easier it is to make a movie.

In any film business, if you're trying to get your next film made, you would never say, 'Oh, my last film was a cult film.' I'd say, 'Oh, great, well I hope this one isn't!' I always say to Johnny Knoxville, 'How do you do it? You sort of do the same thing we did, except you made millions, and I made hundreds.'

How can you compare 'Hollywood Shuffle,' financed through the director's credit cards, and 'Apocalypse Now?' You have to take into consideration the conditions under which it was made.

After the blockbuster 'Magadheera,' I made a film with comedian Sunil as the hero. If I am interested in making a film - big or small - I will go ahead and make it.