Saul Bass Quotes

We're always looking for the backbone, the central idea, and once you have that you know everything can circle around it.

Whether you're a cameraman or a director, you should ask yourself every now and then, 'What am I trying to do?' Be honest and keep things very simple.

The task is not primarily to have a story, but to penetrate the story, to discard the elements of it that are merely shell, or husk, that give apparent form to the story, but actually obscure the essence. In other words, the problem is to transcend the givens of a narrative.

Try drawing or painting a scene you're working on. Often this will help free up you imagination.

I've worked in the movie business for many, many years, where you have lots of days and lots of money. It's really mainly about time. We always try to conceive all of our action from a place of, "What can we shoot that looks fantastic?," rather than trying to do the kinds of thing that you would be able to accomplish in a movie.

I tried to find a language for the film - not just telling stories. I picked the Picasso painting because it said more than I could explain. I need images, I need representation which deals in other means than reality. We have to use reality but get out of it. That's what I try to do all the time.

Photography is not a sport. It has no rules. Everything must be dared and tried!

Is photography an art? There is no point in trying to find out if it is an art. Art is old-fashioned. We need something else.

One of the challenges was to make a cinematic movie about literally talking heads and to try to make it feel like something you want to see in a theater.

I think I generally try to buy the best quality and keep it simple. I don't try to make too many decorations, too many things with it.

It's the Simple things that are really effective. Try to remember that.

I don't use iMovie and don't use shitty little cameras to try to prove something or say something because that's a part of the process. We do it just because that's what we like to use.

I was really interested in a pretty simple thing: what happens when someone tries to introduce moral considerations into Wall Street, what happens when someone wants to actually demand of himself and those who work with him that what they do is not just profitable but good and useful.

I think I'll try to keep working in film for a little bit. There's something still kind of magical about it, that I don't want to let go of.

[Martin Scorsese ] basically works just like any other director. You work the scene, you try to find what's best in it and make it work. That's what it was like.

If you can make a good picture that actually has some substance, that's doubly good nowadays 'cause most everybody else is trying to address how many CGI plates we're gonna do, what little being is gonna come in from another asteroid.

I think what we're trying to do as filmmakers is make a big, gritty, raw, epic movie and within that show things graphically in a way that they haven't been seen in that world before.

That's what comics journalism does better than anything else: you can get a feeling of what it was like. Like Scott McCloud says, especially with a simple drawing style, you can project yourself into the image, and imagine yourself having those experiences.

Imagery is the most important to me when singing stories. I try to paint pictures with the words and decorate with little to no singing....let the song do the work.

I'm part of what I consider the entertainment industry. For my photos to be entertaining, they have to be provocative and new.

I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term - meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching - there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

All films are learning processes. I am still trying to work out how you make a movie. I didn't study at film school or any of those things. I didn't bother with film theory.

I really love printmaking. It’s like a mystery and you’re trying to figure out how to rein it in.

We always for better or worse try to put on paper what's going up on screen - whether we're directing it or not. It's really just an extension of that habit which is trying to tell the reader what the movie will look like. Ultimately that is the job of a screenwriter to a certain extent.

The essence of wisdom is to know when to be doing, and when it's useless even to try