Adrian Younge Quotes

Rules limit you, and once you start thinking about what the audience wants or expects, it becomes a trap that a lot of artists fall into.

It's hard to be in the limelight and write songs that cater to fans that have expectations of you. We just want to write songs that we love, but all the different people with different ideas coming in make it difficult. We have to ask ourselves if we're writing for the most important people: the fans.

Working on a novel is very solitary and I get to be the boss. I'm the dictator, so I win every battle. So, in that sense, novels are easier because you don't have to answer to anyone. And then, you go into something like film and there are more cooks in the kitchen, so to speak.

What happens with artists, or people who start off doing things for the right reasons, is that you slowly start to paint yourself into a corner by doing what people outside of the creative world are asking you to do, and I think that's antithetical to being an artist.

I do have a responsibility, but I would make the most boring films in the world if I woke up every morning worrying about my social responsibility.

If I start a film of my own, then what I eliminate is acting in other people's movies. Because once I start, and I go raise the money, it's about two and a half or three years, and I can't stop. I have people hired. I can't say, 'Ooh there's a good part called 'Drive'; I'll see you in three months.'

You have to have a certain amount of limitations, I think, to make art and to make something that can be alive on film. Money can get in the way of that.

For me, directing a film is like confining myself. I want to do something beyond direction. I can conceive stories, write screenplays, etc. That's better for me.

I realised that success and pure creativity are not very compatible. The more successful you become, the more you become a product of something that generates money. Instead of being able to move forward freely and do what you really wish, you find yourself stuck and obliged to repeat yourself and your previous success.

There will always be some films that the audience would like and some that they don't. But if I start becoming a slave to appreciation, I will be subjecting myself and my talent to one particular type of taste. I don't want to do that.

Honestly, I really can't speak on others, but in a sense, I feel like every artist always has their problems with the industry because we all want to have our creative way.

Movies are not an art form where you get to kind of sit in your art gallery and paint, you know? You don't do that. You're spending a lot of somebody else's money.

What you write sets the visual style for the film. But you have to compromise your style in your first few films before people let you do what you want to do.

I want to make big movies - but I don't want to have to die a little death every single time I do. Until I meet the people or the studio or the business people who will let me do things a little bit more the way that I need to do them, I probably shouldn't be making big studio movies.

I just never want to do anything that's going to compromise what I do. It would have to be a song where there would be honest discussion about something.

In America, I don't think you have the creative freedom that I'm used to. Traditionally, it's a producer's cinema here.

Hollywood seduces a person who's used to making theater, art, and having success on their own terms and then tries to squish them into a box and, eventually, throws the box out.

I was fortunate to write pretty much a year out of film school and start making movies in the Hollywood studio system. But with each progressive film it became more frustrating not being able to speak and say things I wanted to say.

As a freelance artist, you have to please somebody instead of just making music. But when the employer trusts and leans on you to determine what is right for a scene or feeling, that's ideal.

Having been subjected to the pigeonholing of Hollywood myself, I realized that once you become a studio-approved director, your chances of ever making your own film again are zero. You make the films that the studio wants you to make.

I learned how difficult it is to be an artist. There are always compromises. The record company wants you to do this, your fans want you to do this, your family - you can't concentrate on your work.

You can have a favorite band, but when they sign with a major label... maybe a new producer says, 'You can't do that, take this down a notch.' And you'll keep listening, but you'll always think their first album was their best album.

When you're working in service to a big project, there's always the question of, 'Is there total freedom to do what I think is right artistically, or is this a job?' It's okay for things to be a job. I'm perfectly comfortable working. I don't need to sit around and quench whatever personal artistic thirst I have at all times.

Lifes light. Life is light. You can make light do anything you want to. Photography means 'light writing'.

Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage.