I didn't really want to be a filmmaker, growing up. Other than Spike Lee's movies, I would think, 'Where is a place for me?' We were so damn poor that it just seemed too far beyond.
When I was young, my idea was to become a filmmaker.
There are consequences with age, so you have to evolve. I've loved becoming a filmmaker. But I would love to continue modeling, and there isn't really any job for me. It's being marginalized - that's the sad part.
I'm free - but I'm also not free because there are millions of young people living in Iran. A filmmaker can only do a little.
I have three sons, and the oldest wants to play pirates all the time. It has all these associations of living some kind of very free life. It's interesting for me as a filmmaker to show a whole different side of that.
Ron Howard is a great filmmaker and also a great storyteller in 60- and 30-minute shows, so why isn't he going to be a great storyteller in 10-minute pieces?
Whereas money is a means to an end for a filmmaker, to the corporate mind money is the end. Right now, I think independent film is very confused, because there's excess pressure in the marketplace for entertainment to pay off.
I was always a filmmaker before I was anything else. If I was always anything, I was a storyteller, and it never really made much of a difference to me what medium I worked in.
When I was 20 years old, I had no plans to ever be a filmmaker.
My father was an amateur filmmaker who shot 8mm color documentaries.
I am a filmmaker. That is all I've ever been. You know, Martin Scorsese makes films about the mob. And I make movies about food.
All I want is the same opportunities as the filmmakers I grew up admiring. But you know, I've had lots of amazing opportunities to do the movies I wanted to do. If I could write my future, I'd want to keep making character-based films that can make use of my voice as a filmmaker.
A filmmaker can never be distant from his roots.
You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Mexicans have a very nice word for it: pura vida. It doesn't mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life. And that's what makes young people more into a filmmaker than academia.
The thing is, I'm a very practical filmmaker.
Even reading my first bad review was an awesome experience. It was cool because you make something and not everybody's going to like it. I felt like that kind of grew me up a little bit into a professional. I was a student filmmaker, and no one writes reviews about student films.
I think I'm still trying to find my voice as a filmmaker and finding stories to tell.
If you're a wildlife filmmaker and you're going out into the field to film animals, especially behavior, it helps to have a fundamental background on who these animals are, how they work and, you know, a bit about their behaviors.
I was very committed to the process of composing, working at poems, putting things together and taking them apart like some kind of experimental filmmaker.
It's easy to make a film, but it's hard to make a career of being a filmmaker.
God has been my number one inspiration. I also look up to Will Smith and Jamie Fox who are also personal friends of mine. They give me great career advice. I would also include Chris Stokes, as a filmmaker and music producer. I've been working with him since I was eight.
I am the luckiest filmmaker I know.
I learned that you have to say that you're a filmmaker. You're not a screenwriter; you're not a director for hire. You've got to take charge. You're a filmmaker, and you're going to make a film.
I love directing scenes that I'm not in because suddenly I really feel like a filmmaker which is a different thing.
Even from a really young age I was a huge movie buff - five, six, seven, eight. Just loved movies, but in a more in-depth way than most kids that loved movies at that time. I'd find a filmmaker or something and want to see all his movies.
As a filmmaker, you have to stand in front of what you did and make choices that you could do with a clear conscience.
I'm a filmmaker who decided to go to culinary school. All I picked up was the fact if I didn't understand what was going on with every single ingredient, I could be qualifying for, like, the lunch food job at my daughter's school.
I'm not the kind of filmmaker who's going to go from one thing to the next. I often wish I was that filmmaker, but I'm just not.
I think one of the privileges of being a filmmaker is the opportunity to remain a kind of perpetual student.
My three Ps: passion, patience, perseverance. You have to do this if you've got to be a filmmaker.
I'd like to make mistakes on my own dime and not have a herd of people tell me what I'm doing wrong. and I'm also still trying to find and develop my voice as a filmmaker, and I think that's easier to do on your own terms than trying to satisfy a bunch of people that are paying for the movie.
As a filmmaker, I'm a collaborator first.
You need pencil miles to be a great artist, animator, or filmmaker, and the sooner you start making mistakes, the quicker you learn.
I am my own worst critic, and I look at 'Death Sentence' now, and I go, 'Oh wow, I have really come a long way.' In terms of a filmmaker, I feel like my filmmaking language has really matured.
My favorite film is 'The Shining,' mostly because it was the film that inspired me to become a filmmaker myself.
In a way, perhaps, there's an advantage of being on the edge of something and looking in as the observer, because as the filmmaker, you're the storyteller, and you're pulling out this universal story.