Frank Peretti Quotes

As a screenwriter, you always have frustrations. It's just the nature of the job, and you have to live with it. Your vision is not going to be the same as the director's vision. It doesn't mean one is better or worse; it means they're different.

I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.

I have an amazing team; I have amazing producers; I have amazing writers, but at the end of it, it's me making the decisions on the writing, the tone, the editing.

Eventually, everyone said, Why don't you direct? It would save time. And that's how it started.

The filmmaking process is a team effort. A screenwriter cannot possibly do exactly what he wants as if he was writing a novel.

I worked with a group of people who argued day and night - professors, officials, the Minister of Finance - but there were decisions that I had to make.

To be quite honest, I've been very blessed when I've worked with Hollywood. The studios that have purchased my work to be adapted to film have really liked the work and wanted to stay as close as they could to what the book was.

I think it's always good for the author to stay a good cattle prod's distance from the actual moviemaking.

So I told Robert from the start that if we couldn't get Charles and Max to take part, but especially Charles, that I didn't want to make the film. So would he call his mother and talk to Charles and see if Charles would at all be interested.

The struggle of making a film for any studio is the fact that the producers and the studio have an idea of what the movie should be, but that is especially the case when the director is being replaced three weeks before principal photography. The challenge for me was to make sure that was my version of 'The Wolfman.' And I've done that. I think.

Writing is a solitary existence. Making a movie is controlled chaos - thousands of moving parts and people. Every decision is a compromise. If you're writing and you don't like how your character looks or talks, you just fix it. But in a movie, if there's something you don't like, that's tough.

And I maintain good relationships with all the studios so I've never been bullied into any cut, frankly.

The great thing about movies is that they're collaborative. And the worst thing is that they're collaborative.

In 'Blood Work,' they made choices I wouldn't have made, but I'm not a filmmaker. I took the money, and they told the story.

As a screenwriter, you are so used to things going in directions that you wouldn't have taken, so to be able to say, 'This is how I intended it, this is how I want to shoot it, and these are the decisions that I'll live by,' I think directing is a logical conclusion of mine.

I tend to get hired because the filmmakers like what I do, so there's usually not that much conflict about the direction.

Sometimes, a player and a coach can have a different opinion. In the end, the best interest of the end, the best interest of the club has to be kept in mind.

My own experience is that the best outcomes are reached when opposing viewpoints are clearly and strongly presented before decisions are made.

It's not that I can't collaborate. It's just that I don't know how to say no to people. If someone's like, 'Let's write a song together,' it's like, 'You'll write the song, and I'm gonna okay everything.' It's very hard to think that their ideas work with what I'm trying to do.

Actors don't request what scenes to be written in. That's just not how it works.

When it comes to filmmaking, we have to deal with ego, anger, and a lot more; barring all these, how the team works towards the outcome matters.

I think the most important thing is to, without belligerence, stand up for what want. Argue compellingly if someone tries to change your script. Yeah, legally they can if they want to. But rather than give up, as some of the writers do, and just wail about how your script got rewritten, it's much more difficult - but well within the realm of possibility - to argue very sincerely, calmly, and reasonably from your point of view, such that the director or the producer might decide, "All right, let's do it that way."

Most bands don't work out. A small unit democracy is very, very difficult.

I've directed things that other people have written before, and I've written things and given them to other directors. So I'm very versatile in terms of that, and I enjoy all of it.

Compromise has a negative connotation.