Melina Matsoukas Quotes

A good script and a good brief from the director is enough to let me know what is expected of me.

I don't think of myself as a director or writer. I think of myself as a filmmaker.

I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act.

Technically, maybe I learned most of all from George Stevens, and among his movies I learned the most from 'A Place in the Sun.' It's a lesson in moviemaking.

I have always believed that directing a film is like telling a story. You have to tell it well so that it is appreciated.

Directing was easy for me because I was a writer director and did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay.

Everything a director does must help the story and the performances. Otherwise, it is useless.

As the director of a film, as the story teller, you have to keep your voice alive.

In a nutshell, directing 'The Gift' was all about understanding how the complex machine that is 'Game of Thrones' works.

Directing is a tremendous art.

As a director, I'm not the one animating every frame, every shot. I'm moving around like a surgeon on rounds, or a farmer checking in on all the plants being grown, pruning and adjusting. For me, it's a very exciting job.

In my opinion, the motion picture is the greatest medium of expression ever invented. It embraces all the other arts. The films that have the greatest unity, the greatest overall strength, and give the most satisfaction to the viewer, have been those in which a guiding hand was imposed in every section of the film's many divisions.

It's a director's job to tell a story and he's very well versed in telling stories with a bit of comedy in them and keeping the pace of the movie right and that's exactly what he did. He was observant of a world he didn't understand but he told a wonderful story.

Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.

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

Most screenplays depend primarily on the vision of a director.

A screenplay is really a blueprint for something that will be filmed. Therefore you must always keep in mind that whatever you write is going to be staged, for real.

I've never directed before, so I need to make sure that people know that I can. The movie that I've written, 'The Sophisticates,' is a... small ensemble comedy and I hope it's charming and funny.

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.

In TV we've used something that I love... it's called process. I love process.

I don't direct so that I can have an identity and so I can go on to CGI movies. I had a big identity as an actor, and that's not what I'm looking for from directing. Directing is a whole different goal.

I think the worst that can happen in filmmaking is if you're working with a storyboard. That kills all intuition, all fantasy, all creativity.

The director is the only person on the set who has seen the film. Your job as a director is to show up every day and know where everything will fit into the film.

I've consciously taken on material that's a bit too much for me but not an overreach. The first movie, just about performances. 'The Town,' I learned how to work broader material, develop tension, direct bigger scenes, action sequences. 'Argo,' I experimented with film stock, widened the scope of my geography.

You ought to have a perspective when you're making a film.