Film-maker's bible:

Cinema lessons from successful film-makers: the Ultimate Film-making Checklist.

Getting started: "The Director: The Greatest Job in the World". How do Filmmakers break in?

Roger Ebert: "Autobiography does not transfer. You have to get your own start. It is a career you have to make for yourself. Say, 'I am a movie director.' Give yourself the title. No one else will. Then go off and make your movie." (...) "It takes self-confidence, perseverance, and a kind of ruthless determination to become a film director. You have to impose your will on large numbers of other people. (...) Compared to this personality type, a symphony conductor is a pussycat." (...) "It doesn't matter if you go to film school or not. What matters is that you called yourself a movie director, and you made a movie. How did you make a movie? As Malcolm X once said, and Spike Lee once quoted, you did it "by any means necessary."

Edward Zwick: "The thing that got my first job was my writing." "To understand the principles of dramaturgy and structure and writing: that's what gives a career longevity. It's not about being able to shoot something well. I think the certain exceptions, those who shoot well, and only that, end up having much less interesting careers than those who actually are invested in the theater of ideas and think about movies more deeply and understand the traditions from which they come and all that they aspire to." (...) "Really, it's about breaking down the inner obstacles to your creativity, to understand who you really are and what legitmately interests you. Because finally only you write those things that reflect some deeper chord in your person - only when you touch things that are really of you can you hope to do something that will be of interest to anybody else." "With a certain amount of perseverance, talent can't help but be recognized." "Good is not good enough. You have to be great. It has to be great or else it has no place in an economic imperative, which is unfortunately what the film business remains, what it is, was, and always has been."

Barry Sonnenfeld: "The way to be a good director is similar to being a good father. It is all about consistency, love and hugging. All directing really is is having an opinion about everything, and through this you create tone and style that makes it seem as if you had a plan from the start. (...) Directing is ultimately about having an opinion and making sure that your opinion is consistent." "I have a very specific tonal point of view and I believe that the tone of a film either works or it doesn't. I think that that is the hardest thing for the director to maintain. I feel that I am able to do that and to remain focused." "What is great is that you can get to a directorship from anywhere and from anyplace. I think that the best way into the business is through writing a script that you have written and you say to a studio that if they want to buy the script they must let you direct it, then you have a decent shot if the piece is really good. That's your single biggest weapon." "There is no right or wrong way to become a director." "You have to be willing to walk away from a project and whenever I felt that I cared about a project too much, I knew I was in danger because I might lose control. (...) As long as you are willing to walk away, then you are in control, but if you love a project too much ten that is a recipe for disaster and the studio can just take over and manipulate you however they see fit."

John Schlesinger: "The way to approach getting into film is to write something, direct it, and shoot it by whatever means possible, even if that means you have to go out with a video camera and do it yourself. You've got to have something to show that may surprise people." "One mistake is to say, "Hey, I've got twenty-five copies of this film I made, I'll do a mass mailing." You've got to present your work personally and let them see the whites of your eyes, the determination. That's what they will be impressed by. Presentation is crucial to impressing someone." "Keep your head down, knock down the walls, and use anybody you can to gain admittance to a chance at doing something."

Kimberley Pierce: "It is important for me to be true to myself. I have a need to express my own identity through film character. I think that all of those filmakers that we love are personal filmmakers - they tell stories about themselves through their work." "I think that this is what accounts for success. You have to be in constant struggle to express your deeper inner life, and translate that into the characters you create. " "Success was a by-product of the result; if I had simply pursued success alone I don't think it would have worked." "You can't focus on external success, you really just have to focus on the mechanics of your creation." "Who's to judge whether you have talent or not? Only time will do that." "If the work is good, then it will find its way into the world because that is what happens with good work. If you work hard and you are good at what you do, then people are naturally going to want to work with you and they will seek you out. As far as social connections go, they will just happen naturally." "Film is only exciting when something is really different. The experience of walking onto a theater and going somewhere you didn't expect to go - this is what I hope to create in my films."

Vincenzo Natali: "The power of simplicity. I think I learned that the film always got better the simpler we made it." "I believe that filmmaking is the art of compromise." "You should really have as many projects going on at once as is possible. You have to invest yourself in a lot of different projects and you have to be flexible enough to jump from one thing to the other. You can't really have enough material under your belt." "The point is that it is important to do something that represents you. I know that there is a real temptation to make a movie that you think will please other people and that will fit into a category of film that is popular and would be accepted. Early in a career that's a dangerous thing to do. What people are really looking for in young filmmakers is originality. I think there are more interested in that kind of creative energy than in technical polish. It's really about creating something that is totally mind-blowing and that represents you." "To be successful you must have the willingness to push endlessly until your work gets seen. Cream will always rise to the top." "You really have to appreciate every day that you have on the road to your destination. You have to enjoy the people around you and the process of constructing a movie. If you think too much about the endpoint, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment. It is the process that is important, and that is what holds true for me. It's really about how you live your life rather than where it takes you."

Abel Ferrara: "I believe you have no choice but to do what you are driven to do, because if you got it, then you got it. I believe that everyone is born to do a certain thing. I really belive this to be true. For whatever reasons it may be, certain people are driven in a clear direction by their talent, their background and something inside them that tells them what to do. When you find this out for yourself you've gotta go for it 100 percent." "The best thing I can recommend is, if you want to make movie then go out and do it. For 10$ you can buy enough digital videotape to shoot a whole feature. The concept of starting as a production assistant to become a second assistant to become... I certainly never went that road and it was never even a thought. I was a director from the beginning, and that"s what I had to do. I was a director from the beginning, and that's what I had to do. It wasn't about making it big or whatever; it was just about making films because I knew that that was my thing. Find your own thing and do it."

Peter Farelly: "We are just making movies, so we don't stress about it." "When I am on the set, I try to remember to have a good time. I don't want people to suffer for three months making a movie just so I can have a piece of "art". "

Amy Heckerling: "You only need one yes, that's all you need. You can hear three nos are you can hear five hundreds nos but all you need is one yes." "You just have to push yourself out there." "The first question is, Who do you go to for help? First you need to make sure that you are going to see someone who is already looking for something." "If you have material, you need to get it out there. You need to have something to show to people." erley

Edward

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