Final Cut Quotes

I've never made any film that I wouldn't go back and re-edit.

You never really know as an actor; it's completely out of your control, in terms of editing, and music, and film stock, shot selection, and what takes they use.

Nothing is cut while I'm shooting. I edit between nine months and a year, and usually have around 80 hours of footage I have to get down to an 82-minute movie.

Particularly in the final stages I always find that I'm rushed. It's dangerous when you're rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting.

I forget who said it, but there's that saying: 'Films are never finished, they're abandoned.' There's always something you think you can improve on, but I don't think you should try. George Lucas started doing it, and didn't stop. You can tinker indefinitely, and it doesn't necessarily make it better.

I think, at the end of the day, filmmaking is a team, but eventually there's got to be a captain.

Same thing with film, by the time you've finished shooting and you've really been into everything, you've touched up everything in the editing room. You've gone in there and taken little bits from everything.

I have no control over a film. I don't know what will be left on the cutting floor.

The craziest thing about TV directing is I turned in a version, and then they made their final changes - so I don't know what they are. So I'm like, "Ooo, I'm dying to see the final print."

I don't watch the dailies. You want to just turn in your resignation when you watch the dailies.

Don't worry about getting final cut, worry about making the best possible cut.

The point of having a director is that they make the final decision; it's their point of view, they set the rhythm and they make the final decisions.

You act in a movie, and at the end of the day, the director and editor decide what your performance is.

A film goes through so many hands, that by the time it's done, it might not resemble what you thought you were making.

That's the thing about making a movie: You never finish editing. They just take it away from you.

Once the film is released, once my job is over, I can't see the film again.

I was briefly in the original version of 'Tombstone,' but I didn't make the final cut because that movie went through a couple of different permutations.

Film, as far as I'm concerned, is my area of artistic endeavor, so I never think of a movie that gets released as being all done-it's just when they took it away from you.

When I first went to Stevens Point, I never thought I'd ever be close to the NBA. I didn't even think about the NBA. The big start for me was making it to the final cut for the Olympic team, and I was the only one who was going to be back for my senior year of college.

I tell my students that with a 200-page novel, you are going to write 100 pages that don't make the final cut. See it as an opportunity, although it took me a while to enjoy that 'lost in the woods' feeling.

Robert Altman was a very jovial guy and obviously a famed improviser and perhaps less effective in post-production, which is like the crystallising process. So I found myself at sea often with him because we'd have conversations about what music is, and in the end, I don't know how interested he was?

People come up to me and say "Steve, what is film editing?" And I say "How should I know? You're the director.

The great thing about filming a film is that you all have your final day's shooting, but you always know that you're all going to be coming back for the premiere.

The first draft of 'Ex Machina' is extremely different than the finished film. That would be like 10% of the original draft stayed into the shooting script.

I enjoy editing when I'm directing, but when someone else is directing, that's their film to cut.