Bennett Miller Quotes

Directing has completely changed the way I write and watch films.

There's the movie you write, there's the movie you shoot and the movie you edit, and often, you find that you're getting the same information out of a scene that you already have and a scene that's actually more powerful, so you have to make the tough decision to take it out.

I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.

I usually do about five cuts as a director. I haven't ever directed a film where I haven't made five passes through the movie, and that takes a long time.

Any time I approach a scene, it's not just what's on the page - it's how the camera's going to show or not show what's on the page. It's which character are we going to align with and what music is going to be playing.

I have realised there are so many stories which can be told beautifully on screen. It's important to be part of such films.

I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you've never made a film, you're not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.

So as I was growing up, my father was always in the middle of making a film or preparing a film. It was a full-time, all-consuming type of operation.

Even with college, the reason I wanted to go so badly is because I wanted to major in film. I want to take screenwriting classes and learn more about behind the scenes stuff, because I love people like Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig who are able to write a lot of their own material and be so involved in everything they do.

I learned first of all not to be intimidated by any visual effects that I don't understand. It can all be learned. You can then use them as tools to tell your story. I also learned that you have to be really vigilant, the more complex the movie, to not lose yourself and to not lose sight of the priority.

The hardest thing for me about making movies, and that included 'M*A*S*H' because it was made like a movie, was starting and stopping.

By the time I was 10 or 11, I knew I wanted to make films.

I started making 8mm films when I was 13, so I've been directing for 21 years.

I've been in enough movies to know that when you're on the set and you start shooting, you're looking at playback and you get a sense of what it's going to be like.

I think of myself more as a filmmaker or as a film person than as strictly just a writer. I don't come out of playwriting or anything like that.

I aspire to eventually be making my living by making movies.

I just don't see very many films. Because I make them.

In a movie, you're raw material, just a hue of some color and the director makes the painting.

My two great loves when I'm shooting are working with great actors and composing images.

When we shoot 24, there are so many things I have to worry about, from the script to technical things to my performance, that I don't have a second to be bored or take anything for granted. We produce 24 hours of film a season, which is like making 12 movies.

When I write a screenplay, and when I direct, I always pull lines out.

As far as I'm concerned, I make movies.

I was, and am, a frustrated filmmaker and film student, and my passion and love for movies was so broad that, in the earlier part of my career, I stumbled into doing 'Sports Night' and was a comedy director.

I think you should make movies as long as the story dictates.

As a director you have to be careful you don't over-design the film. You have to be careful that the period aspect does not take over.