To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script. — Alfred Hitchcock
I did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay. It was probably harder for a regular director. He probably had to read the script the night before shooting started. — Preston Sturges
A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue. — David Mamet
All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant. — Robert McKee
Although there was a screenplay, the actors never knew what questions I was going to ask them, and all of my character's voice-over narration and scenes were added after the fact. — Griffin Dunne
But here's the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright. — Beth Henley
You sell a screenplay like you sell a car. If someone drives it off a cliff, that's it. — Rita Mae Brown
All drama is conflict. Without conflict, there is no action. Without action, there is no character. Without character, there is no story. And without story, there is no screenplay. — Syd Field
A stage play requires very different craft from a book, fiction or otherwise, and ditto from a screenplay. — Dirk Benedict
The most important thing is the story. Not the script, but the story. — Richard D. Zanuck
[Screenwriting] is no more complicated than old French torture chambers, I think. It's about as simple as that. — James L. Brooks
Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to. — T. S. Eliot
You can't fix a bad script after you start shooting. The problems on the page only get bigger as they move to the big screen. — Howard Hawks
Cut the ending. Revise the script. The man of her dreams is a girl. — Julie Anne Peters
Let me tell you what, reality is better than any script you could ever write. — Dana White
Short Screenplay Quotes
Screenplays are not works of art. They are invitations to others to collaborate on a work of art. — Paul Schrader
I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I'd rather write plays. — Beth Henley
Most screenplays depend primarily on the vision of a director. — Tom Skerritt
I've written about 15 screenplays and they all sold - they were all sold on pitches. — Bruce Vilanch
I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay. — Kate DiCamillo
I should probably bequeath the copyrights to my screenplay for Spies Like Us, just in case. — Nathan Hale
A great screenplay is the most powerful bait in Hollywood. — Sissy Spacek
All screenwriting books are bullshit, all. Watch movies, read screenplays. Let them be your guide. — Brian Koppelman
I present the nominees, well, not me the Voice of God, for Best Screenplay. — Emma Thompson
Getting your screenplay right is the most important thing you'll ever do on your film. — Yahoo Serious
Film Screenplay Quotes
A government institution called the Finnish Film Foundation funds filmmaking there, and I wrote several screenplays but never got any money. They were sent back to me, and they said that they were too commercial for them. — Renny Harlin
Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?" — David Mamet
[Success] always starts with the material; it always starts with the truth and honesty of the characters that you read in the screenplay and that's rarely something that can be remedied if it's simply not there by the time you shoot the film. Thank God we had that. — Leonardo DiCaprio
I've been a professional athlete, I've directed films, I've run a company with 150 employees, and nothing compares to writing a screenplay. Just the second I think I know what I'm doing, the rug gets pulled out and I have no idea what I'm doing. Because there are so many problems to solve. — Stacy Peralta
I've wanted to make a film about French youth since I went to Cannes with my first film 'Kids' in 1995 ... Scribe's screenplay is about French kids today, and the world today. Just like my films 'Kids' and 'Ken Park', this will be a movie like you have never seen before. — Larry Clark
I've made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation. — Satyajit Ray
For me, when working on a film or play or television show, everything for me starts with the screenplay and I am devoted to that and that is what I work from. Any research I do or any preparation I do on my own is all ultimately in service of that. — James Spader
Scripts are what matter. If you get the foundations right and then you get the right ingredients on top, you stand a shot... but if you get those foundations wrong, then you absolutely don't stand a shot. It's very rare-almost never-that a good film gets made from a bad screenplay. — Tim Bevan
Most film directors do not come up with their own subjects or write their own screenplays. — Thomas Harrison
The best way for a beginner to write for animation is to closely watch animated films, then read the screenplays for them afterwards. — Douglas Wood
Screenplay Writing Quotes
If it isn’t for the writing, we’ve got nothing. Writers are the most important people in Hollywood. And we must never let them know it. — Irving Thalberg
When I graduated college I needed to make money while I was pursuing acting, so I read screenplays and made a living writing coverage on them for studios. — Sasha Alexander
In order to avoid sentimentality and to be able to write the screenplay with the kind of humor and irony necessary to keep the story moving, I needed to distance myself as much as I could from the characters, to try to get to a point where I could view them objectively. — Hirokazu Koreeda
I could be just a writer very easily. I am not a writer. I am a screenwriter, which is half a filmmaker... But it is not an art form, because screenplays are not works of art. They are invitations to others to collaborate on a work of art. — Paul Schrader
Writing a screenplay, for me, is like juggling. It's like, how many balls can you get in the air at once? All those ideas have to float out there to a certain point, and then they'll crystallize into a pattern. — James Cameron
At the moment, I'm toying with a new idea for a book, but fully engaged with writing screenplays, so the book idea - which needs empty space in my head - is barely formed yet. — Rose Tremain
Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write. — Kazuo Ishiguro
In a novel, language is your principal tool, you try to build pictures in the mind of the reader. When you write a screenplay, the language is just a transition, the final goal is a picture on the screen, it's the only thing the audience sees. — Philippe Claudel
I like to begin every screenplay with a burst of delusional self-confidence. It tends to fade pretty quickly, but for me, at least, there doesn't seem to be any other way to start writing a script. — Michael Arndt
I am co-writing a screenplay now and I'm working on the rights to another story I want to do. So I plan to produce and direct. So, for me, I don't really feel that I am vulnerable to that sad baggage that comes with the business of filmmaking. — Kerry Washington
Air Quotes
Genius has no country. It blossoms everywhere. Genius is like the light, the air. It is the heritage of all. — Jose Rizal
Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better. — Henry Rollins
I wanted freedom, open air and adventure. I found it on the sea. — Alain Gerbault
You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise! — Maya Angelou
The air was fragrant with a thousand trodden aromatic herbs, with fields of lavender, and with the brightest roses blushing in tufts all over the meadows. — William C. Bryant
When you begin to realize that your past does not necessarily dictate the outcome of your future, then you can release the hurt. It is impossible to inhale new air until you exhale the old. — T. D. Jakes
Faith is one foot on the ground, one foot in the air, and a queasy feeling in the stomach. — Mother Angelica
The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it. — David Attenborough
Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
My people are scared of the air around them, they always have an excuse not to fight for freedom. — Fela Kuti
Screenplay Movie Quotes
I've always said that movies are kind of like love affairs. Two people come together, and if they're at the right place at the right time and it's the right situation, it clicks. I've always felt that I've connected with screenplays. It's the romantic in me. — Robert Zemeckis
I write screenplays that don't get made and pilots that don't get picked up, and I re-write other people's movies, and those are all different kinds of fees. — Bruce Vilanch
I've always equated the writing process with editing, sort of like when I get through editing the movie, that's like my last draft of the screenplay. — Quentin Tarantino
Jerry picked up the technique of visualizing the story as a movie scenario; and whenever he gave me a script, I would see it as a screenplay. That was the technique that Jerry used, and I just picked it up. — Joe Shuster
Y Tu Mama Tambien' is one of the first unrated movies to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. But many video stores won't take a movie that's not rated, so I had to make the movie an R. — Alfonso Cuaron
I can never read this book, just like I can never see a movie that I wrote a screenplay for. I can read it and see it physically, but I can't accurately judge it. I'm too close to it. If I read it ten times I'll have ten different reactions. — Richard Price
There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay. — Richard Attenborough
I've been a screenwriter for twenty-five years. Every one of my books have been optioned for movies and I have written a few of those screenplays. — Alice Hoffman
I had a bad experience on Ned Kelly, which I'd written the screenplay for. I thought: "Well Jesus, if these are the type of people directing movies I might as well direct one myself!" — John Michael McDonagh
A movie is painting, it's photography, it's literature - because you have to have the screenplay - it's music. Put a different soundtrack to a comedy and it's a tragedy. — Paula Patton
Movie Script Quotes
Hollywood is in control of politics and has imported their action-filled movie scripts into the real world. — Kim Dotcom
I couldn't say no to jobs and I couldn't say no to drugs. I'd get high from a movie, I'd be somebody else because I didn't particularly like me, so long as I had a script in my hand, I was okay. As soon as the movie was over, I didn't know what to do. — Brion James
The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn't. — Joseph L. Mankiewicz
I remember that when I got to NYU, everyone was writing scripts. But I was 18 at the time, and when you write a script, so much of it is about what you pull from life, and this sounds sort of cheesy, but I felt like I didn't have enough life experience at that point to write a movie. — Todd Phillips
Whether it is the cavemen in the caves thousands of years ago, Shakespeare plays, television, movies and books, stories and characters take us on a journey. All I do is tell those stories without scripts and without actors. — Mark Burnett
The first script was one of six original stories I had written in the form of two trilogies. After the success of Star Wars, I added another trilogy. So now there are nine stories. The original two trilogies were conceived of as six films of which the first film was number four. — George Lucas
Life is like a B-picture script! It is that corny. If I had my life story offered to me to film, I'd turn it down. — Kirk Douglas
The secret of making movies is having the strongest possible script. — Harvey Weinstein
To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I'm writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I'm going to play for the opening sequence. — Quentin Tarantino
A movie goes from several stages, from idea to script. As you continue shooting, you will make some adjustments. You're constantly adjusting. It's like a piece of music. You're constantly trying to make it better. — Robert Rodriguez
Screenwriter Quotes
Time is a precious thing. Never waste it. — Gene Wilder
Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple — Gene Wilder
Tagore once said - art has to be beautiful, but, before that, it has to be truthful. — Ritwik Ghatak
When you hit a wall – of your own imagined limitations – just kick it in. — Sam Shepard
When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite. — Sergio Leone
Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot. — Buster Keaton
My teacher once told me – ”No one is perfect……..that is why pencils have erasers.” — Mahesh Bhatt
I think what's important for kids to know is that your decisions here on earth matter, your behavior matters and how you treat other people matters. — Matt Damon
Failure is a badge of honor. It means you risked failure. And if you don’t risk failure, you’re never going to do anything that’s different from what you’ve already done or what somebody else has done. — Charlie Kaufman
Film Writing Quotes
It's not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn't. — Guy Ritchie
If I fail, the film industry writes me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart. — George A. Romero
I'm looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody. — David Bowie
I got expelled from high school, and then did my exams from home. I decided, through that experience, that I was going to expediate my plan and didn't go to university. Instead, I went to a community college and studied the theory and history of film with the idea that I wanted to write and direct. — Charlie Hunnam
I was opposed to doing TV for a long time because I thought the quality of writing wasn't very strong, as opposed to film, but there's been a shift in term of the quality of scripts. HBO has attracted a tremendous amount of great writing talent. — Peter Dinklage
The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art. — Chuck Palahniuk
A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film. — Lorrie Moore
When you're actually making a film, it's just people on your back all the time wanting stuff and you're constantly having to it deal with them. It's probably the most time consuming of all the arts, but I do love it because it is a great mix of visual art and music and writing. — Taika Waititi
I've always worked on all different types of music, some with specific project goals and deadlines and some not. Sometimes I would write a piece of music that is almost like a film score or weird electro pieces, wherever the muse took me, and I still do that. — Serj Tankian
The United States has made a massive effort since the end of the Second World War to secure the dominance of its films in foreign markets - an achievement generally pushed home politically, by writing clauses into various treaties and aid packages. — Fredric Jameson
If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamned garbage. — Samuel Fuller
Usually, when special effects get in the way, it's because the story isn't strong enough. If you don't start with a strong screenplay, it's easy to fall back on special effects, thinking it's going to carry you. But it never works. It's just tiresome. — Ridley Scott
I just finished a novel, and I'm back kind of noodling on the screenplays. Screenplays are tough. I am making music, I'm just not sure what kind of music it is or where it's going. — Michael Nesmith
I'm working on a screenplay right now for the BBC, but I hope to have the decks cleared soon so I can get into the studio with my pals and put down some more tracks, try to get a strong dance single together. — Irvine Welsh
This is not a screenplay. I don't do twenty drafts. I'm not going to show this to you until it's published or accepted for publication. You can make whatever suggestions you want, but I probably will ignore them entirely. — Robert B. Parker
Since I worked with Danny Boyle before on Slumdog Millionaire, we have great success and everything. So, when I first got the script and the screenplay of Simon (Beaufoy) and I was reading it, even before the shoot, some kind of sounds came into my mind and I put some stuff [down] and sent it to Danny when he was cutting the movie. — A. R. Rahman
I always try and bring screenplay, shooting and editing into a sort of symbiotic - as close into alignment as you possibly can get them, consistent, obviously, with the resources that you've got and the time you've got available. — Paul Greengrass
Most screenplays, most motion pictures, owe much more to the screenplay. Ingmar Bergman has such an economy of language, so little language in his piece, it is so visual, his moods are introduced and buttressed by camera rather than by word or character. But again, that's unique. — Rod Serling
I can't imagine any director directing a screenplay of mine, because the great directors all have very personal styles, and the ones that don't are not very interesting directors. — Woody Allen
By the time I was doing "Kill Bill," it was so much filled with prose that, you know, I start seeing why people write a screenplay and make it more like a blueprint, because basically I had written - in "Kill Bill," I had basically written a novel, and basically every day I was adapting my novel to the screen on the fly, you know, on my feet. — Quentin Tarantino
You're trying to create a screenplay and your screenplay is there to give you a structure, rigidity, situational awareness, who the characters are, what do they want, what's the shape of the thing. — Paul Greengrass
Some directors, like Stevens [George Stevens], shoot full circle, 360 degrees, and that's what's right for them. I generally shoot at about a seven to one ratio. But part of that is because I've worked on every screenplay, so I'm further along in the visual concept. — Elia Kazan
I was in Los Angeles making 'Dead Again' and the producer, Lindsay Doran , asked me if I'd be interested in adapting this book, .. Austen is my favorite author and I thought, 'Well, of course, I'd be very interested, but I don't know how. I don't know where to start, A, writing a screenplay and B, sort of adapting it from a great novel. — Emma Thompson
I have always credited the writer of the original material above the title: Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Bram Stoker's Dracula, or John Grisham's The Rainmaker. I felt that I didn't have the right to Francis Coppola's anything unless I had written the story and the screenplay. — Francis Ford Coppola
A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built. — Nicholas Meyer
I have always had trouble recognizing myself in the features of the intellectual playing his political role according to the screenplay that you are familiar with and whose heritage deserves to be questioned. — Jacques Derrida
The day you step on the floor the meter is ticking and time is of the essence. You can't really afford to not know what you're doing. So I think the screenplay is a great tool to get everybody on the same page. — Robert Schwentke
I counted it up once. I think I have written 45 full screenplays. Of those, maybe 15 have been shot, in some form. That's a pretty good track record, but it's not 100%. It is frustrating that, as a screenwriter, I've seen all those movies and they don't exist in the real world. They're juts inside my head and on those pages. — John August
When I started writing short stories, I thought I was writing a novel. I had like 60 or 70 pages. And what I realized was that I don't write inner monologue. I don't want to talk about what somebody is thinking or feeling. I wanted to try to show it in an interesting way. And so what I realized was that I was really writing a screenplay. — Shane Carruth
I know I'll keep writing poems. That's the constant. I don't know about novels. They're hard. It takes so much concentrated effort. When I'm writing a novel it's pretty much all I can do. I get bored. It takes months. Movies do the same thing. It's all-encompassing. It feels like I'm going to end up writing poems, short stories and screenplays. — Sherman Alexie
In Conclusion
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