Quotes About Making Documentaries

#1. My background is sociology. Combined with my graphic approach, if I could do some film projects, I think I'd be very good at making documentaries eventually, but people don't think of me for that, of course. But dialogue is something I know I can be good at.

David Carson

#2. My compulsion to always be working has become less strong and my current business is purely down to this enormous alimony. If I wasn't doing this I'd be making documentaries about wildlife and other subjects that interest me.

John Cleese

#3. In fiction film, there are so many trappings - money, glory, champagne and supermodels - that attract the wolves. But in documentary film, there's none of that, so the wolves stay away. The only people who make docs are people who are curious about other people and just like making documentaries.

Marshall Curry

#4. The thing about making a documentary in Las Vegas is there isn't much to film apart from other people making documentaries about Las Vegas.

Clive James

#5. Even though I was making documentaries, my films had fictional elements to them. I think I like blurring those distinctions because so much of what we see on television purports to be the truth, but it's often largely imaginary - or wishful thinking, or any number of less honorable things.

Ruth Ozeki

#6. When I first started, I saw myself shooting documentaries or making documentaries, which is what I did, mostly, for a number of years. So it was quite a surprise how I found myself shooting features. It was like my wildest dreams as a kid collided.

Roger Deakins

#7. I live in New York City, and I'm making huge action movies. The people that make huge action movies live in L.A., and they're surrounded by other people who make huge action movies. I'm surrounded by people making documentaries!

Doug Liman

#8. First of all, being a woman is an incredible asset in many ways in making documentaries. You can be less intimidating, you have a heightened emotional sensitivity and you have the ability to listen to multiple conversations at one time and multi-task.

Ondi Timoner

#9. When I'm making documentaries, I think a lot about how fiction films play. I want them to have the pacing, the twists and the character development of fiction films.

Marshall Curry

#10. I don't think I'll be making documentaries my whole life.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

#11. I had worked in fiction a lot before I started making documentaries, but when I was around 32 or 33-years-old I suddenly got so fed up with the world of fiction, which is so money-centered.

Pirjo Honkasalo

#12. Yes, I am the Olympic champion, but this is not the end of it. I want all the gold that there is out there, everything that exists in figure skating. In all events, in all competitions.

Adelina Sotnikova

#13. As an actor, your text is your bible, so you're not making a documentary, but you still have to follow the choices made by your writer.

Natalie Dormer

#14. Instead, I pull out my wallet and hand Mrs. Carnes a twenty, which is the smallest I have, and she counts off the books.

Jennifer Niven

#15. When I was a teenager, I thought maybe I'll be a filmmaker, making film documentaries. My dream when I was a girl was I would be hired by 'National Geographic' or work with David Attenborough, but it didn't happen. I became a model.

Isabella Rossellini

#16. I hate making TV documentaries.

Jamie Oliver

#17. I don't think of Storefront Hitchcock or Stop Making Sense as documentaries, I think of them more as performance films.

Jonathan Demme

#18. I think I did fifteen long features and fifteen documentaries, or something like this, which is very little when you think of people making a film every year. Some people have done fifty or sixty films.

Agnes Varda

#19. If I weren't making documentary films, I suppose I'd be teaching.

Brian Lindstrom

#20. I think one probably absorbs things like a sponge and things emerge without your always being aware of it.

Jeremy Northam

#21. When I joined Nirvana, I was the fifth or sixth drummer - I don't know if they'd ever had a drummer they were totally happy with. And they were strangers. There was never much of a deeper connection outside of the music.

Dave Grohl

#22. Whenever I'm making a feature film, I wish I were filming a documentary, because making feature films is so stressful. It happens every time.

Fatih Akin

#23. I can't watch TV longer than five minutes without praying for nuclear holocaust.

Bill Hicks

#24. I wanted to resist in 'The Look of Silence' making a film that ends with any kind of positive hope I feel in human rights documentaries dealing with human survivors.

Joshua Oppenheimer

#25. The Son of God reveals Himself in me, and out of devotion to Him service becomes my everyday way of life.

Oswald Chambers

#26. I think there have been so many documentaries about pop stars, made by pop stars. It's a new phenomenon. People making these movies where they praise themselves and show their own weaknesses. it's all designed to make you love them even more.

Judd Apatow

#27. I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go.

Jonathan Demme

#28. When I'm actually making a film and trying to find solutions, I like to watch making-of documentaries about huge films, like 'Gladiator.' That couldn't be more apart from what I'm doing, but you see Ridley Scott facing huge problems and fixing them.

Philippe Falardeau