John Singleton (writer/director: Boyz n the Hood, Shaft, director: 2 Fast 2 Furious, Four Brothers)
“I never thought I was going to be a studio filmmaker. I always thought, I always planned on being an independent filmmaker. So, and once I got a chance to do some studio films and then, you know, you have the ebb and the tide and the weight of that where you’re a studio filmmaker, whatever. It’s not so much, it wasn’t so much of a thing for me to say, “You know what?” when they say, “Well, we don’t want to make this thing because it’s too lot of crazy.” “I’ll do it on my own,” and I made HUSTLE & FLOW. I produced it.”
“I always feel like the cheapest way to make a movie is to write it. It’s like climbing Everest, is to write a great screenplay, and the second hardest thing to do, the next mountain to crawl, is to get somebody to actually read your thing. Okay, and then get somebody to read your thing that can actually take the energy enough to make a phone call — “You know what? This is something that we should try to consider.”
“Whenever you put the camera on, a reflection of life. It’s not life, it’s a reflection of life, but you have to recreate spontaneity. A movie that you guys should see, you had to have seen TAXI DRIVER, but if you’ve only seen TAXI DRIVER once, twice, three times, you haven’t seen it enough. If you watch that movie, that movie is like, a stream of experience, you know what I’m saying? A stream-of-consciousness movie. It happens as, it’s a mixture of stark reality and stark, dream reality, and that’s why it works. You see what I’m saying? And so, that’s what, I’m always like, trying to go after. Okay, yes, I can do something very, very hard, realistic, and all this stuff, but can I do something that, you know, that can only be told in a cinematic way that will, after people see the experience, they want to see it again and again and again? Not necessarily because it makes them feel good, but because it brought something out of them emotionally. It brought something out of you emotionally, like, “Why am I feeling this way? Let me go back and watch it. Why do I feel this way?” So, that’s what I feel what I’m going for as an artist, and I think you can get that by studying film, by studying all types of art, by studying painting, by studying dance, you know what I mean? Being a very literate person, you know what I mean? Reading different forms of literature, not just things that are specific to whatever culture you’re from. You have to be very, very astute and open to different things and different forms of storytelling to really do it.”
Charles Burnett (writer/director Killer of Sheep, To Sleep with Anger)
“Well in general UCLA was known to be like um, sort of anti-Hollywood. If you wanted to go into Hollywood you went to USC, you know, and there was a big difference between the two schools. And one of the great things about UCLA at the time was that, you know, they gave you a camera at project one, and said “go out and make a film,” and the idea was to come back with something we haven’t seen before, you know, because if you came back with anything that resembled something that was, you know, um, they’ve seen, clichéd, or whatever, you were crucified at the end of the quarter screenings. I mean literally crucified by teachers and students. It was very vengeful. And uh, so when you made a film you were very guarded. Really people were, if you went to talk to a student who was working on his film he would…[laughter] he would cover his work, you know, and look at you were trying to steal his gold or something, you know, like they’re miners. So it was that kind of competition, you know, but they allowed you to do whatever you wanted to do, you know. Basically, if you wanted to be a cameraman, or um, worked in sound, editing, you were able to do that.”
“Everyone can do anything! And I mean a lot of people don’t want to be directors or anything but they chose, they were able to sort of evolve into the filmmakers they wanted to. And that was a great thing because, you know, you learn how to do sound and camera and all that sort of thing and you know, working independently it really helps to know all of those things, that worked in all those job areas, you know?”
“I was sitting there you know, at the end of the course screenings and they had the best films you know, at Royce Hall, and so I was sitting there saying, “I can’t do this.” [laughter] You know literally you know, it’s not my reality. And luckily for Basil Wright I was taking his class, because I just, you know, I just went to him one day and expressed the problems I had, you know, “I can’t do this, you know?” And, you know he had did SONG OF CEYLON and things like that you know, and worked with Grierson and things like that on NIGHT MAIL and all of that and Joris Ivens and things, and I really admired Joris Iven’s films and things, and so he just said “you know, don’t worry. Make your film and remember to respect the subject.” And for some reason that sort of, the light came on you know, and I said well, because the whole reason I went to film, he reminded me of to do films about my community you know, and using film as a means for social change. And also, I was working…doing work with this political group of filmmakers who were making films about, you know, the working class and exploitation and stuff like that, and it was a sort of formulaic kind of a situation where the plot was always the same. The characters always ended up forming a union and everything was happy after that, you know?”
Taken from the 2015 Austin Film Festival