Guerilla Filmmaking Quotes

I think I had the most fun making a movie with 'Dedication,' just because you knew that it was a passion project for everyone involved. We had X amount of days to shoot New York in the cold. No trailers. Just sort of kind of doing it guerilla style in a way.

I love films that are made with almost no budget.

By the time I got to Bournemouth Art College, I'd been so inspired by Sam Raimi and Robert Rodriguez and their tiny, no-budget films that I decided to do a feature-length version of 'Fistful Of Fingers.'

Filmmakers, they tell me they want to make movies. I say, 'Good, go out, buy a $500 camera, get some friends and make a movie. Don't go to Hollywood. Stay wherever you are.'

From a production point of view, I still have one foot firmly planted in the independent film world, and much of the shooting on 'Jumper' was done 'Swingers'-style because that was the only way we could afford to do it.

Early on, I joined that large group of show business cadets who were 'multi-hyphenates,' 'independents,' 'self produced' or 'alternately financed.' Sometimes, most times, I've had to do it all: raise the money, write the script, produce, direct and act in the film.

I've been using the same editor, thankfully, she's been sticking with me, but I've been doing it full-on guerilla style... I haven't gotten any public sponsor or anything, because I don't want to seem like I'm trying to sell any particular thing.

That's why 'The Bourne Identity' has that sort of shaky style, because for the most part, Matt Damon and I were sneaking around Paris and shooting where we didn't have permits.

This was truly guerilla filmmaking. We shot out in the middle of nowhere in a place called Delta Flats, where basically every day was some new minor catastrophe.

Trying to make a feature film yourself with no money is the best film school you can do.

John Belushi infused Animal House with this spirit of guerilla filmmaking. John Landis came from that world too, and all the National Lampoon writers were from that world. It was just chaos on film. Controlled chaos, though. We stayed very close to the script. It was a very formal kind of movie, if you look at it. Formally photographed and structured, with certain elements of improv.

The weird thing is, 'Game of Thrones,' people go to Iceland for three weeks, and it'd be like a small guerilla operation. 'Thor,' we went there for, like, five days, because we couldn't afford to be there any longer, because we were airlifting the entire contents of Hollywood into this country.

If women choose guerilla style filmmaking or new media productions, etc., all power to them. But if they're there because 'Big Hollywood' won't let them in, then we're moving further and further away from equality.

With 'Sweetback,' I just put it together a little bit at a time. I didn't do it on anybody's grant. I did it like any other young executive - by cheating and stealing!

You can make a really good film for under a million dollars, like 'October Baby,' or under a half million, like 'Hardflip.'

You make a movie for 9k for the freedom it allows you.

The fact that I was taking naps in churches, in between takes of the [Ordinary World], and there was that guerilla style of filmmaking, I felt more at home with that.

I had originally done a production called 'The Resistance.' It was one of those underground guerilla things, very low budget. Then Starz and Ghost House ended up picking it up and funding it, and we reshot it.

Thank God for small movies and filmmakers who can make movies for not $8 million. Thank God for $8,000 movies.

Despite the limitations of the bulky 16mm camera and 10-minute film magazines, 'The Anderson Platoon' feels as spontaneous and fresh as any films that have come out of the Afghan or Iraq wars.