Director's Dilemma Quotes

The main thing as a director, you always want to have a bit of a worry about the material you're going to get yourself into. You want to be a bit scared of it so that you have that excitement of having to climb the mountain.

You're in a profession in which absolutely everybody is telling you their opinion, which is different. That's one of the reasons George Lucas never directed again.

As a writer and a director, I simply don't have the time I need to write and prep the movie I would have wanted to make because of the fixed and tight production schedule.

Despite recent speculation in the media, and after difficult but sincere consideration, I have decided not to direct 'Catching Fire.' As a writer and a director, I simply don't have the time I need to write and prep the movie I would have wanted to make, because of the fixed and tight production schedule.

Most of the films I myself like don't do very well. Every director, he has a choice, whether to go for subtlety and try to articulate every minute detail, or to go for the broad strokes and hope that the people will fill in between the lines. I tend to go for the broader strokes.

Even when 'Kaakha Kaakha' was released, there were people who gave it an average rating and said they couldn't figure out what was happening. Three days after its release, the producer called me and asked me to remove all of Jothika's scenes from the film. I told him; in that case, you can also remove my name from the director's slot.

It's a very stressful thing, directing a movie. You have the budget, you have the schedule, you are in certain confines, and you have everybody giving you advice about what to do.

When I started working as a writer-director, that's when he became Paul Thomas Anderson and I became Paul W.S. Anderson. Neither of us can write and direct an American movie under the name Paul Anderson.

The first day I start shooting, I start having a recurring nightmare that every single night that I am lying in bed, and there is a film crew surrounding the bed, waiting for me to tell them what to do, and I don't quite know what movie I am supposed to be making.

The first film is everything you want to say and how you want to say it. Lots of directors will do that and do it really well, but the second film is not so easy.

Delay and indecision are first weapons in the armory of moviemakers.

You make a film and always hope you're going make "Citizen Kane" or "The Bicycle Thief." You make the film, and for one reason or another, one clicks and one doesn't, but it's out of your control completely.

Directing is a terrible, anxious process. It's all collaboration, and if you have a dream, it's diluted very quickly by the slightest ineptness in any of your collaborators. They're supposed to help you, but too often they help you into your grave.

Sometimes directors feel a script needs something, but they're not sure what it is, so they show it to a friend; if the friend is a writer, he ends up kicking around with that script for a while.

I guess the idea of not wanting to choose to direct a film, for which I've not read a script. It's a tough decision to make without seeing any pages. That's not to say that I don't have all the faith in the world in the spectacular writers.

Sometimes, directors are afraid to stop shooting, because the second you stop and say, "We got it," and move on, you'll never get another chance. And they're terrified to get in the cutting room and not be happy. So they just keep shooting.

I mean, in the editing room, you sit there, and you're so happy about a lot of it. You've got these great actors, and the DP's great, and you love it... And then there's so much you're mad about. Cause you've made so many mistakes. So yeah, there're scenarios where you're like, "Ah, I wish I could change this. How do I make this better?" "No matter what I do, the scene's not working, what do I do?"

As a producer and director, I've tried for years to get properties off the ground for girls, and I've been hitting a brick wall.

As a director, there's no natural career progression. So after 'The Wackness,' which was very personal to me, I was very, very picky about what I was going to do next, to the point where I think that I was almost too picky.

Directors, like actors, get typecast. And because I've had great success with comedy and horror and TV shows, that's basically what I'm kind of offered.

I chose to stylize 'Among Friends' and add a dark comedic element because I didn't want to get pigeonholed as a genre director. I have a pretty dark sense of humor and knew that in order to get distribution, I had to do something in the genre for my first time out.

It became a gamble to myself whether I was able to do the exact same film ["Funny Games"]under very different circumstances.

Deep down, all directors feel like frauds - because it's built into the nature of the job. You're the jack of all trades and the master of none. The cameraman knows the camera, the sound man knows the sound equipment - and you? You can't do anything: You can't do the acting, you can't dress the set, you don't record the sound or shoot the images.

The scene was attempted a second time, up on top of the fort, and cameras didn't even roll. Michael, though he wasn't admitting it, wasn't sure how to shoot the scene.

Some people make a great film and then they can't follow up.