FILM CLIPS
"The one important thing I have learnt over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking oneself seriously. The first is imperative and the second disastrous."                                       KEVIN SPACEY
"If you're lucky enough to do well, it's your responsibility to send the elevator back down."                                       HARLAN ELLISON
"There is an irony to the fact that the most exciting work being done in the motion picture industry at this dawn of the 21st century is that of discovering, restoring, preserving and presenting great and historic films from the mid-20th century on DVD.  A glorious byproduct of the rebirth of many of these films is the opportunity to lavish similar restorative work on the scores from many landmark films which, without the accompanying film restoration, would not have been possible."                                       ROBERT TOWNSON                                       (Film Score Monthly)
"In those old-fashioned days of 35mm film, the names of the movie cameras - the Arriflex, Panavision, or even the Krasnogorsk - had a ring to them, and could bring forth lush associations. Today's digital camera model names have all the lilt of bar codes  To add to the confusion, the technology is developing so rapidly that most of the cameras on the market 18 months ago are now obsolete, so it's had for filmmakers and cinematographers to bond with their machinery the way their counterparts have done for the past century."                                       BETH PINSKER                                       (The Independent - AIVF magazine - 2002)
"To stop the overwhelming influence of drama in film, I began to concentrate on the glories of an undramatic present, which is literally the tabletop. That is what peripheral vision is most involved with -- the so-called mundane, which people use as a word of contempt when they really mean 'earth. What they don't see is the potential for glory, for envisionment that's inherent in even doing the dishes, in the soap suds with their multiple rainbows, or in the dull edge of a plate that has to be scrubbed. If they could only see, only get involved with the wonders right under their noses -- more specifically, if they could only see the movie playing on either side of their noses. All they have to do is close their eyes and look."                                     STAN BRAKHAGE
"There's more to life than seeing movies and trying to imitate them. Like Thoreau said, 'Stand up and live before you sit down and write.' And along the way, keep reading. It may not make you a writer, but you'll end up a better person for it."                                      ARTHUR MILLER                                      (sometime in the 70s)
"You know, I think of myself as an amateur filmmaker, and I mean that in a good way, because the word "amateur" comes from the 'love of' something."                                      JIM JARMUSCH                                      Filmmaker Magazine
A big problem is the obsolescence of video formats. There have been 74 video formats introduced since Ampex brought it's two-inch system tp the marketplace in 1954. Even if the media survives, tape equipment manufacturers have abandoned old systems because they are interested in selling new hardware.                                       FILM & VIDEO MAGAZINE                                       on film and tape preservation
The major obstacle for amateur film-makers is their own sense of inferiority viv-a-vis professional productions:  The very classification "amateur" has an apologetic ring.  But that very word - from the Latin "amateur" - "lover'  means one who does something for the love of the thing rather than for economic reasons or necessity.  And this is the meaning from which the amateur film-maker should take his cue. Instead of envying the script and dialogue writers, the trained actors, the elaborate staffs and sets, the enormous production budgets of the professional film,  the amateur should make use of the one great advantage which all professionals envy him, namely, freedom - both artistic and physical.     MAYA DEREN from ESSENTIAL DEREN:                                         COMPLETE FILM WRITINGS OF MAYA DEREN
As a society, do Americans, and consequently, all of the daily elements which demand our time, like work, school, family, and friends - need to relearn the value of lifelong experience over short-term achievement and deadline after deadline after deadline?   JASON PANKOKE                                                                          in MICROFILM MAGAZINE                                           http://www.artisticunderground.com/mf_unbound/
The label "independent" placed on most films today is like saying the ingredients in Hostess Twinkies is 100% organic.                                                        ROMEO CAREY                                                  (son of late actor Timothy Carey)
He was a discouraged film school student when he noticed someone copying contracts out of the back of my book. He bought it and was walking across some bridge in Canada reading about how to begin a project when the idea for his movie suddenly slammed into his head. Realizing there had never been a movie made about convenience store clerks, he dropped out of school, bought film stock with the money he saved on tuition, charged $2,000 limits on 10 credit cards and made the movie with another clerk and his girlfriend.                                                       RICK SCHMIDT                              (author of "Feature Filmmaking at Used Car Prices)                                               talking about Kevin Smith
I enjoy working with Michelle Bauer, because she has no aspirations about being a great actress.        FRED OLEN RAY                                                      in HORRORBIZ MAGAZINE
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, random conversations, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable, originality is nonexistant. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from-it's where you take them to."                                                        JIM JARMUSCH
Say what you are. Not what you would like to be. Not what you have to be. And what you are is good enough.                                                        JOHN CASSAVETES
Great films like "Ben Hur", and great formats like MGM Camera 65, are museum pieces that should be held in the highest esteem. They are the greatest works of American culture.  To hide them away and let them decay is our shame. Sharing them with the world would be a mission that should engender enormous national pride.   SCOTT MARSHALL A plague of irreversible proportions is taking over American film exhibition.  Digital sound technology and the megaplex movie theater are destroying the last remnants of the movie-going experience.  Certainly, the advances in sound recording and presentation are welcome, but at what cost? Stadium seating and multiple showings of a film add comfort and convenience for audiences, but at the cost of older, finer cinemas. The movie-going experience isn't necessarily better as we head into the new century. Now movies are getting excessively loud, the projected images on screen are often blurry and dim, and auditoria are harking back the shoe-box era of the '70s.                                                                                         BILL KALLAY Both quotes from 70MM SUPER DEFINITION CINEMA                                (INTERNATIONAL 70MM PUBLISHERS RVW)