Film Students Quotes:

Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you're a director. Everything after that you're just negotiating your budget and your fee.

- James Cameron

source: James Cameron, Brent Dunham (2012). “James Cameron: Interviews”, p.117, Univ. Press of Mississippi

topic: Inspirational, Friends, Stars, Film School, Negotiating

And Later I Thought, I Can't Think How Anyone Can Become a Director Without Learning the Craft of Cinematography.

- Gus Van Sant

topic: Thinking, Directors, Crafts, Film Directors, Cinematography

It's a very good thing for students also to be exposed to people who aren't film students or film scholars but who work in the world of film.

- Robert Mayer

topic: People, World, Students, Film Students

Film students should stay as far away from film schools and film teachers as possible. The only school for the cinema is the cinema.

- Bernardo Bertolucci

topic: Teacher, School, Cinema, Film School, Film Students

I wanted to be a film student again, as a man in my 60s. To go someplace alone and see what you can cook up, with non-existent budgets. I didn't want to be surrounded by comforts and colleagues, which you have when when you're a big time director. I wanted to write personal works.

- Francis Ford Coppola

source: "Francis Ford Coppola on Lucas, an 'ambitious' new movie, and his box set". Interview with Solvej Schou, www.cnn.com. December 4, 2012.

topic: Writing, Men, Directors, Film Students

I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm in the last years. Mainly because film students using digital video these days have not really produced anything which is more than superficial or simplistic; so I have my doubts.

- Abbas Kiarostami

source: Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

topic: Years, Doubt, Video, Film Students

When I first came out, I was a film student and my mom sewed clothes. I was already doing a million things then, whatever it took to survive. If I had to braid someone's hair to get one pound for my lunch money, that's what I did. But I did it in the most creative way possible.

- M.I.A.

source: Interview with Carrie Battan, pitchfork.com. October 17, 2013.

topic: Mom, Hair, Lunch, Braids, Film Students

I was a film student. I became an actor, but I thought I'd be pursuing filmmaking originally.

- Dermot Mulroney

source: "Mulroney and Amazing". AMC Interview, www.amc.com. June 2002.

topic: Actors, Students, Film, Film Students

I like doing commentary. As a filmmaker and film student, I think it's really interesting to hear what a director did and how they figured out how to do things. I often like the technical commentaries myself.

- Catherine Hardwicke

topic: Thinking, Interesting, Directors, Really Interesting, Film Students

Film theory has nothing to do with film. Students presumably hope to find out something about film, and all they will find out is an occult and arcane language designed only for the purpose of excluding those who have not mastered it and giving academic rewards to those who have. No one with any literacy, taste or intelligence would want to teach these courses, so the bona fide definition of people teaching them are people who are incapable of teaching anything else.

- Roger Ebert

source: "Lights, Camera, Action. Marxism, Semiotics, Narratology." by David Weddle, articles.latimes.com. July 13, 2003.

topic: Teaching, People, Giving, Film Students, Arcane

I think too many film students in America are losing the artistry and not learning lighting the right way.

- Vilmos Zsigmond

topic: Thinking, America, Way, Film Students

I wanted to be in film. I wanted to be a film student, possibly be a director or cinematographer, not an actor. That was my goal. I didn't believe I had the physical beauty that I'd seen projected and advertised in movies, in theater. It just wasn't for me.

- Pam Grier

source: "Actress Pam Grier". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. May 13, 2010.

topic: Believe, Goal, Directors, Physical Beauty, Film Students

When I talk to film students, I always say, "Buy the DVDs and listen to the commentaries, look at the making of, look at the behind-the-scenes," because that's such a great learning tool.

- Catherine Hardwicke

topic: Dvds, Tools, Looks, Film Students, Commentary

Well, I think every film student goes into film school thinking they want to write and direct their own movies, and they don't realize how much goes into it, and what a process it is.

- Alexis Bledel

source: Interview with Steve Head, www.ign.com. October 8, 2002.

topic: Writing, School, Thinking, Film Students

I encourage film students who are interested in cinematography to study sculpture, paintings, music, writing and other arts. Filmmaking consists of all the arts combined. Students are always asking me for advice, and I tell them that they have to be enthusiastic, because it's hard work. The only way to enjoy it is to be totally immersed. If you don't get involved on that level, it could be a very miserable job. I only have one regret about my career: I'm sorry that we are not making silent movies any more. That is the purest art form I can imagine.

- Vilmos Zsigmond

topic: Art, Jobs, Sorry, Music Writing, Film Students

Upon its debut, The Room was a spectacular bomb, pulling in all of $1,800 during its initial two-week Los Angeles run. It wasn't until the last weekend of the film's short release that the seeds of its eventual cultural salvation were planted. While passing a movie theater, two young film students named Michael Rousselet and Scott Gairdner noticed a sign on the ticket booth that read: NO REFUNDS. Below the sign was this blurb from a review: “Watching this film is like getting stabbed in the head.” They were sold.

- Greg Sestero

source: Greg Sestero, Tom Bissell (2014). “The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

topic: Running, Weekend, Two, Refunds, Film Students