Sidney Buchman Quotes

It's madness to hand in a script to a director, leave them alone, and for the director not to want the writer there with rehearsals and the shoot.

The filmmaking process is a team effort. A screenwriter cannot possibly do exactly what he wants as if he was writing a novel.

It's good to work with a writer-director.

I'm proud of 'Sinister' because Scott and Cargill did a great job on the movie, and I set up a framework for them to make what they wanted to make. They gave me the idea, and I figured out how to get it out into the world.

What you do is get the right director and the right screenwriter and the right cast. It's a fantastic job.

I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.

Since signing with Universal, I have been working closely with Gary Ross, the director, producer and screenwriter. We have spent many hours on the phone, and I've been sending him information and items that have been useful to the writing process.

Any filmmaking, any film is a collaborative process. There's always a lot of people working on things together.

Nelson McCormack on 'Killing Kennedy' was really terrific because I wrote the script, and he had some terrific ideas. We went over the script together, and I was with him on set. So it was a collaborative effort.

There comes a time as you continue to write and work on scripts and screenplays where you realize that you have opinions about the next step of the process, and you kind of want more control over the translation from page to screen.

'Sing Street' was the first time I'd worked so collaboratively.

The nuts and bolts of shooting a film and writing a film are still really difficult. But what makes it easier is the fact that you know you're going to go to work with your best mate.

'Rent' was a special project for me. It was my first notable screenplay job. I worked with two wonderful directors on it, starting with Spike Lee in the summer of 2001. I wrote a draft for Spike and he was really good to me.

I can't imagine directing from someone else's script.

And 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll' was a very transitional film for me in that I was one of the producers and you know, came up with the idea with the writer and the producer, as well. But, it was a very collaborative event. You know, I really love working in that way.

Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.

As a filmmaker, I'm very collaborative. I don't pretend to know everything that is needed to make a movie. What I like to do is get together with a group of people, starting with developing the story and bounce around ideas.

I'd love to work on a script in collaboration.

When you're a screenwriter working on a film, you're not really even welcome on set, even if you know... When I wrote 'Elizabeth' and Shekhar Kapur was a friend of mine, but I wasn't really welcome on set, because the director is God and it's a very difficult position for a screenwriter who's put so much passion into that, into the writing.

I wasn't trained as a writer-director. And the projects I write are difficult to finish.

If a script comes together, and you end up liking the people who are part of it, that's when you can make magic happen. It's a huge combination of trying to find something you think you can deliver on and a director you think you can collaborate with to make a good picture.

I'm just gonna make movies the best I can, do the festival thing or whatever can come. I plan on working with a lot of the same guys over and over again. I hope the majority of us can stick together.

To me the only real star of the movie is the writer. And I work with writers very closely, from outline to first draft and on to the seventh draft, whatever it takes. Then my job is to support the director to make the best movie we can. Some producers try to go past them, but my job is to support them.

The director in TV and the writer and the creator are working very much hand in hand.

I think it's always good for the author to stay a good cattle prod's distance from the actual moviemaking.