Filmmaking Challenge Quotes

'Miracle at St. Anna.' I was challenged by Spike Lee. When he offered me the film, he looked me square in the eye and said, 'You start this film off and you end this film. I don't want a dry eye in the theatre. Can you pull that off?' He was dead serious.

To make a film is easy; to make a good film is war. To make a very good film is a miracle.

Horror movies can really go one way or the other - they can go amazingly or they can go terribly - and it's generally an extreme, in one way or the other, so you have to be very careful.

In some ways, I think 'Pulp Fiction' hurt cinema in a very, very minor, small way. It did a massive amount of good. But it also made it impossible to make a movie even remotely like it without someone comparing it to 'Pulp Fiction.'

The very reasons sometimes that you make a film are the reasons for its failure.

We have new technology that allows us... After we've blocked it, all the actors usually run over to the monitor and we can see the hallways and what's there. But I find it difficult, because you're in such a large room and you feel so small and inadequate. There's so much space around you and actors always want a prop or something just to make it comfortable.

'The A-Team' compared to making 'Narc' was a breeze. There's a whole other skill set and whole other kind of bone structure that goes into making a movie like 'Narc' versus 'The A-Team.'

What attracted me to 'Eclipse' was that it is a great story and a tremendous challenge for me as a filmmaker.

It's hard to make a good movie in four weeks. It's hard. I've done it, but it's not easy.

It's my responsibility to make the movie work with the schedule and money we have. It's my job to get the best movie we can do in the time we have.

I like to go back to Chinese film-making from time to time. I don't think I can make Chinese films back to back; it's such a big effort. I'd have to take a very long break.

To decide to film a movie again shot by shot, you must be masochistic to a certain degree because it is a much greater challenge.

I don't know that I'll ever get to make my ideal film, because Frank Capra is dead.

For a shot, I had to look like I've slipped on wet floor and hurt my back. My director wanted me to just act it out, but I insisted on doing it with water on the floor to make it look authentic. He was against the idea, but I did it and almost broke my back.

When you make a documentary, you have to adapt to what reality imposes upon you.

It's a privilege. It's a real honor. It's a challenge. Michael and I always feel we stand on tall shoulders when we make these films. Audiences come to them with a lot of good will because of what's come before. We just try to make the best film we can, each time, and hope that we satisfy the fans. I'm sure, with Skyfall, that we will. I think it's a terrific film. I hope the audiences enjoy it, as much as we've enjoyed making it.

If I'm lucky, in my wildest dreams I can make a picture every three years.

You have twenty-one days to shoot a whole movie and sometimes you go into that thinking 'ugh, this could potentially be really, really difficult' and it turns out to be the most incredible experience.

When you don't have time, especially for a director, you cannot do exactly what you want to do. You have to cut your dream to fit in the movie you're doing.