Filmmaking Experience Quotes

Growing up the son of a director has made me very aware of the various turns that a directing career can take. Sometimes your films turn out exactly as you want. Sometimes they don't. I spent a lot of my childhood on sets. I think as a joke, my father gave me a line of dialogue in each of his films during the worst moments of my puberty.

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.

The system did not want me to make 'Go.' And I sort of stood up to the system and made the movie I wanted to make, and the fact that I did that and I'm proud of the movie means I'm really proud of myself when I look back on that.

When a film does well, everyone is usually happy and grateful, but for me, the impression the film leaves upon my mind is created during the process of filming; my memories are not a reflection of critics' reviews and box office figures.

In my early days, I didn't know what a good film or a bad film was, and I was trying to make some money. As it happens I was lucky. I made some good films.

Maybe 'Bhoot' wasn't scary for me because I made it.

I had always told my father that before working with him in the same frame as an actor, which I was petrified to do, I wanted to learn from him, so I had pleaded with him for two years before he agreed to write and direct 'Mausam.' It was our dream project and a wonderful opportunity for us to work as a family.

Since I was inexperienced in films, I thought it would be very intimidating to work with experienced people like Sanjay Suri and Samir Soni. But I must say they are very encouraging. They clapped when I gave a good shot.

Working with Terry Gilliam was magic - I've been watching his films since I was little.

The 'Damsels' crew was low-budget, young people who were doing their first thing almost. A lot of it. It felt like Pied Piper or Rumpelstiltskin or whatever: it was me and people thirty years younger or more. But it was great; it was really fun.

I have worked on very good movies that have been buried, and I've worked on some resounding mediocrities that have been paraded through the marketplace like they were masterpieces.

I've done lots of films with first directors, so it's not unusual for me.

I've had really great experiences working with first-time directors. They come at filmmaking with fresh ideas. I've been very lucky that way.

I never saw myself as a director. It's certainly a second language but making movies for 40 years, you pick stuff up. However, this style of making movies, this documentary style, is easier for me because I gather a lot of material and with an editor, write it on screen. You try to write based on what you shot.

Really top-notch directors, I've often worked with them just to see how they work.

I don't consider that I have to judge any of the movies I make all the time, but people are always asking me, 'What's your favorite movie?' And I never know what to say.

I'd come into filmmaking as a painter so, for me, making 'Good Will Hunting' was experimental because I didn't know how to do it.

Every time we make a movie, 'Guardians' included, 'Black Panther' included, 'Infinity War' included, we just feel lucky to be making that movie, and that's basically what the focus is on.

I came out of a sort of experimental background, and I didn't ever really expect - or even desire - a career as a feature filmmaker.

Lord of the Rings was something I always wanted to do. I read the book when I was about 25, and I was always hoping if it was ever made into a feature film that I would be involved in some way. And then I finally got it, and I was over the moon. It was fantastic news.

I'm still trying to learn how to do it, I'm still trying to figure out how to make films, but, yeah, it started then [in 1979].

My father was a really sharp cartoonist and filmmaker. He used to tape-record the family surreptitiously, either while we were driving around or at dinner, and in 1963 he and I made up a story about a brother and a sister, Lisa and Matt, having an adventure out in the woods with animals.

I always start a film thinking I know how to do it, then I learn all over again.

When I was 25 years old and had no money - and didn't know how to make movies and had no experience - I was able to get $25,000 together, and that film was 'The Brothers McMullen.'

I remember when people said, "Man, that's a powerful scene in the movie!" and I was like, "We just shot this thing before lunch, I don't know, he tears a log apart, I said some words".