Allison Anders Quotes

As a director, my job is to spend money, and the producer's is to save money. Masoom, Bandit Queen and the first Queen Elizabeth have been my most uncompromised films.

If you're a producer, you always spend too much money because you want that shot - and you're willing to spend a bundle to get it.

Without doing the big blockbusters, I wouldn't be able to find the money to go after little projects that I want to do.

In the U.K., there's absolutely no money for television. So you can do pretty much whatever you want. They're not losing money on any of the shows, so they'll give you a lot of creative freedom. In the United States, there are millions and millions of dollars at stake, so they need a sure formula.

It seems there's a sliding scale between the money they spend on a movie and its creativity.

If I read the right script, if that script needs $5 million, if that script needs $50 million, I don't care. If I read a project that's beautiful, that I really want to make, whatever it needs, it needs.

I tend to make low-budget movies but, yeah, I make more money than I ever thought I would make.

I resisted the film business as long as I could, because of the big circus act and the amount of money that it costs to make films - I saw my father suffer through that.

I love doing independent films, but it's very hard to make a living that way.

I think that there's a lot more freedom in the low budget, the independent films where, unfortunately, you don't have the money, necessarily, to get the orchestras in there to play a lot of stuff. But, you have a lot more freedom, very often.

It costs a lot of money to release a movie. What you'd call art-house movies - movies that don't have big stars or big budgets - they're very hard for distributors to get behind 'em and take chances.

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.

A lot of times, you do independent films for passion because you may even lose money doing one, but it doesn't matter.

I said I would do all the films about the commercials, and the films about ball-bearings and Ford tractors and so on, if once a year they gave me money for a free film.

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

The great thing I think when you do independents is that people are really there for the same reason. They're not there because they got a lot of money and they want to just go home and get it over with. They're there because they believe in the script or the director or the cast or whatever it is, and they want to make it work.

I'm not a super-actorly actor, my-body-is-an-instrument type of person, but I do want to do fun, exciting, interesting things. I have a 2001 PT Cruiser. I saved my money so I can take my time and choose something that I think is great, and that's what I'm waiting for.

Having to make a blockbuster every time puts unhealthy pressure on creatives. The pressure on the filmmakers is so intense, I think it stifles the creativity.

I have always put my own money into Tails of Joy. For years, every time a dog walked by, my husband would say, 'There goes our beach house.'

Definition of an independent film is torture with less money and time.

I just want to make films that have enough of a budget to pull off high-level imagery but also have a budget that is low enough that I can do what I want.

People in independent film have a passion; they're not in it for the money.

When we did Wayne's World, it was 14 million dollars and they didn't bug us too much because they just thought it was some little movie that nobody was ever going to see. We showed them.

Going forward, I would love to work with directors like Rian Johnson and Joss Whedon; people like that who are doing big films but do have really independent voices. That's kind of what I want to focus on, is always working with people with at least an independent point of view, even if it's not an independent film.

If you are handed something, it's a blessing and a curse. Look at hip hop artists, they produced everything themselves. Even people like Robert De Niro are getting into production. Again, it's art vs. marketing. Not everyone can take the risk. You have to break a few eggs to make a good omelet.