project duration Quotes

It's the business of movies, it's the fights that go along with the level of budget, and more than anything, it's the creative constipation of having to live with one idea for two or three years. It's just not that fun.

It was kind of easier for me to do records that didn't take a year or two years of my life to write and to make.

The typical project design time for a large company like IBM - and they keep track of this - is a little over four years.

Now, there is no way to say how long some projects take, that's our principle.

It usually takes me a year to do a book. A year or eighteen months.

The thing is I really struggle with commitments, so committing myself to six months to a year in a soap opera... I don't think it would suit my lifestyle. A few days working on a project is enough for me, and then I get bored and am ready to move on and do something else.

When you're doing a movie, you're in and out of there in three months. If you hated the experience, it's all good because you can take the paycheck and leave. But, on a television show, you have to love your character and you have to love the experience because you could be there for awhile, fingers crossed.

If you're doing a large, complicated character with radio controls, it might take a number of people several months to make it and if you're talking about a quick little hand puppet, it could be made in 2 days, so there's enormous range there, and no real easy generalities.

Documentaries sometimes can be shot over 10 years. You plan to stop in two, but you still gotta catch more.

Character actors just pile up the credits because you work on a movie for, like, a few days. It's not like I'm the lead in everything I do - far from it. I'm not spending three or four months on a picture; I'm spending three or four weeks. Sometimes three or four days.

Working on a film is so great because you have the luxury of more time when you're on a movie than when you're on television.

The difference between the big budget films I've done is the length of time. But in terms of the day-to-day, you're still going on to set, you're getting into character, and you're going and doing your job, so there's absolutely no difference. It's just the structure around it and the length of time. But in terms of budget and money, it doesn't really manifest itself.

I don't want projects to take 10 years to set up. That adds to the cost.

My projects have typically taken a long time to complete. Buildings might take on average about five to seven years to finish, but in my case it's been longer, because the projects I have accepted within the past 15 years have been mostly government projects, and those involve some politics and funding issues, and approvals and so forth. So they're slower.

I like to do a movie, to be on it 8, 10 weeks. It evolves as you're working on it. Little things come to you every day. It's a slow process, and when you have to pack it into a short period of time, which you do for television, the experience is not one that I cherish. So if it's going to be television, it's really got to be the right thing.

I just didn't want to get bored playing a character, and that's kind of the benefit of doing films; you've lived with a character for four or five months and that's it, and you walk away from that character and you feel like you told a story.

You get a painting idea, and you go do that. You get a cinema idea, and you go in to do that. The difference is, even though the paintings might take some time to make, with cinema you are booked for a year and a half, minimum.

If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.

Before I find myself in the middle of a project, I want to make sure it is the kind of thing that keeps me excited for two years. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to push the proverbial rock up the proverbial mountain.

I like working consistently. I like working for four months at a time, which is why cable was so attractive. You work for four months, and then you get to do something else, whether it's doing a movie or just being at home with your husband and eventually having a family.

After 'Where The Wild Things Are,' which was this big, long five-year project, I spent a year making small things.

The first day was memorable for me. I walked into this studio with these giant eyes, slowly met everybody and got to see the story boards and sketches of our characters. I got the see the sets and was just amazed that all this was to be something we all were going to be part of for almost a year.

Usually, I concentrate on work for a certain time, and finish when I clear a standard I set myself. But with 'Mononoke,' the production was so drawn out, it took forever to finish to my satisfaction.

As an actor, you can show up on a set and be on a TV show for three or four years, or whatever it is and, by the end of it, you just want to do something else.

The reason I don't make more movies is because it's really hard to find ideas that I go, 'Yeah, I could spend two years of my life doing this.' Mostly what I do is say no to movies because I go, 'Maybe I would see that, but I don't think I could spend two years on it. I'd go nuts.'