On-Set Challenges Quotes

I don't like doing movies, period. Movies are hard. I like TV.

Writing is a solitary existence. Making a movie is controlled chaos - thousands of moving parts and people. Every decision is a compromise. If you're writing and you don't like how your character looks or talks, you just fix it. But in a movie, if there's something you don't like, that's tough.

We're producing a movie now, 'The Onion' Movie, and it's very difficult for me to be on the set. If I'm not right in the trenches, it's very difficult for me to watch another director, because I'm not involved and it's not exciting.

It's very difficult to direct something and do it well. But to direct and act - it's very hard.

We filmed 'Expelled' in Santa Clarita at an all-girl's school. There were twelve hour days.

When I finally made it to the set, I spent a lot of time doing damage control on The Magic Christian.

For the first two weeks of filming, I remember bristling at some of the occurrences on the set, none of which directly involved me. Then I surrendered to the environment, to Michael's method, and became much happier, even though no one knew what to expect.

Look, some days, you have to film a sequence in which the rain is pounding down on someone and you're just turning the camera on what's happening. And other days, you occasionally have to spray Robert Pattinson in the face with a firehose.

Filming is a witnessing process. You don't try to control it, even though sometimes you wish you could because it can go really, really wrong for you.

Film work is hard work. It's long days, and quite often quite dismaying locations you have to be in.

I've directed seven movies and know a thing or two about dealing with unexpected crises.

The problem with acting is that there's really no control. You're at the behest of others.

There are films that look very interesting when on paper, but things change while shooting. At times, things changed during post-production, and I see no reason to blame anything on anyone. It is a collaborative effort. If it failed, we should face it.

Something about 'Battlestar' that I didn't realize when I took the job was this whole bubble aspect of closing people in and seeing what they do.

I actually had some funny dialogue [ in Stardust Memories], a little piece, and we shot all day in this big ballroom. Gordon Willis was the director of photography, and at the end of the day, Gordon turned to Woody Allen and said, "We cannot accomplish all of this in this space. It's impossible." And we'd been rehearsing and trying to shoot this thing all day. So Woody said, "Okay, let's do something else." He looked at me and said, "Come back tomorrow, I'll put you in something else." And he did.

Directing ain't about drawing a neat little picture and showing it to the cameraman. I didn't want to go to film school. I didn't know what the point was. The fact is, you don't know what directing is until the sun is setting and you've got to get five shots and you're only going to get two.

Within the process of filming, unexpected situations occur.

I just know that making 'Beast' was an amazing experience. It was my first feature, it was the director's first feature, and every day, you're just trying to do good work and learn.

Being on set is quite difficult, because it's so big and you've got to try and relax, which isn't easy when you know you're in a massive film. I was terrified for quite a long time.

Everything went perfectly on 'In Bruges.' It was constant warfare, but I won all the battles and was really happy working with the actors and everything on the film.

Well, in terms of the filming with the car, you always wanted to be on the side which the cameras weren't, because - and it sounds ridiculous, but getting in and out of that car, all in leather, in the heat, was a problem.

Sometimes filming can be grueling when you're shooting the same scene for a week, or you're sitting around for 7 hours a day. They sound like very first-world champagne problems. I don't mean to sound like life is so hard, but filming sometimes is tougher than other times.

During 'Anna Christie,' the biggest challenge I had was working with my daughter and sort of not stopping and asking an audience member for a camera to record the moment.

There's nothing like the discipline of having to work on a cold film set on the Danubian plain in Bulgaria. Boy, does it get cold.

To have an opportunity to make a movie like Cabin Fever, you have to get stuff thrown on you or you have to fall into a pit of water. It brings you that much closer to your mindset as a character.