Jean-Marc Vallee Quotes

Anything you can imagine, you can put on film.

I think you should make movies as long as the story dictates.

I may even show up behind the camera. I love to put things together; I love to give direction. I have a great eye for pace.

I film quite a bit of footage, then edit. Changes before your eyes, things you can do and things you can't. My attitude is always 'let it keep rolling.'

It was liberating to do comedy. It felt like playing in a jazz band.

From the very beginning, I started doing music performances with a lot of theatrical aspects to them, where humor was a part of it but not necessarily had to be. Humor is just another tool to make the palette more rich and interesting for myself and eventually for the public. It's a great way to break out of convention.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it's about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you'll never do it this way twice. I've studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

Video is freeing, but also lazier. You have to recreate the love of the moment.

It's so cliche, but I love the feeling you get from improv that anything can happen. The audience is already accepting that there are no props or costumes or furniture, so the performers can be anywhere doing anything; cut from underground to space, and it doesn't matter.

I don't actually like blocking actors. I prefer giving actors freedom. They don't have to step on a precise mark with me. Instead of giving marks to the actors I like to give marks to the camera.

It's what still excites me most about acting: letting your imagination go places it's never been before. There's nothing better than that.

I started out my career as a screenwriter and quickly discovered that adhering to a script isn't always the best way to make a film. You have to take into consideration the nuances of the characters and what the actors bring to their roles.

I am very much open to doing cinematography for any talented filmmaker, if the script is good.

I needed to be more self-determining, and the most self-determining thing you can do in comedy is stand-up.

Playing live is really the art form. You're a lot freer, a lot looser. You've got people there that can give you feedback, and then you can play off of that. There's so much more energy.

I was doing well in TV as a freelance cameraman, but it wasn't the direction I wanted to go in. I directed videos and tried to put something cinematic in every one. Dialogue, action sequences, helicopter, Steadicam.

As a director and filmmaker, I love creating my own opportunity, and getting to share the love, in that way, by creating other opportunities for people that I admire, so that they can do something in a way they haven't done it before.

I think if you're doing a play, you're rehearsing enough that you get to a point where it's freeing again. But in a movie, if you rehearse too much, now you've just shown everybody what you're going to do. And any element of surprise or impulsiveness is taken away.

When I work, I really try to get absorbed in the character. Unless I want to do something playful with the camera, I'm not too worried about where the camera is or positions.

Acting is constricted because you have the lines. But I improvise with it and what I learn on the set. I improvise rhythms and just changes.

I probably have the most fun on projects where there's some room to improvise.

You usually never know what you're going to do when you're making a movie.

I think I'll try to keep working in film for a little bit. There's something still kind of magical about it, that I don't want to let go of.

Jazz is about freedom within discipline.

Films and things like that are really my first love and, so when we get to make videos it's just as important as the song. To me it's not a commercial, for me it's a whole work of art on it's own so, we plan on working on a movie and things like that in the future so.