Filming Quotes

“The first time we did cavalry charge I was so breathless with excitement I nearly fell off the horse. I actually saw stars in front of my eyes and thought I was going to faint. The second time I had a bit more control but was still giddy with excitement. And the third time I was an emotional wreck. I had to really try hard not to cry.”
― Benedict Cumberbatch

“I ask Laurie if it's possible to get trained fish. Lindsay says this is how we know I've never produced a movie.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“I seem finally to have stopped worrying about Elinor, and age. She seems now to be perfectly normal -- about twenty-five, a witty control freak. I like her but I can see how she would drive you mad. She's just the sort of person you'd want to get drunk, just to make her giggling and silly.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“One thing I’ve learned: people love a camera, and when I’m filming, they see it, not me, so whenever I need to, I can quietly disappear behind my trusty shield.”
― Samira Ahmed, Love, Hate & Other Filters

“Our first point of discussion is the hunt. (...) My idea is to start the film with an image of the vixen locked out of her lair which has been plugged up. Her terror as she's pursued across the country. This is a big deal. It means training a fox from birth or dressing up a dog to look like a fox. Or hiring David Attenbrorough, who probably knows a few foxes well enough to ask a favour.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“Jane reminds us that God is in his heaven, the monarch on his throne and the pelvis firmly beneath the ribcage. Apparently rock and roll liberated the pelvis and it hasn't been the same since.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“We've hired the calmest babies in the world to play the hysterical Thomas. One did finally start to cry but stopped every time Chris [Newman (assistant director)] yelled 'Action'. ... Babies smiled all afternoon. Buddhist babies. They didn't cry once. We, however, were all in tears by 5 p.m.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“Lindsay [Doran] goes round the table and introduces everyone -- making it clear that I am present in the capacity of writer rather than actress, therefore no one has to be too nice to me.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“(On period costume posture coaching:)

"We all stand about like parboiled spaghetti being straightened out.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“Sense and Sensibility signs litter Devon -- arrows with S & S on. Whenever Ang [Lee] sees a B & B sign he thinks it's for another movie.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“Edward finds Elinor crying for her dead father, offers her his handkerchief and their love story commences. Ang [Lee] very anxious that we think about what we want to do. I'm very anxious not to do anything and certainly not to think about it.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“Make films that purify the soul with the flow of rational, vigorous and compassionate thinking.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“Use filmmaking for a greater purpose, than to just entertain some drowsy minds. Wake the whole world up with your movies. It has been sleeping for long. Its eternal sleep has become its darkest nemesis. Now is the time to wake it up.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“Difficult for actors to extemporise in nineteenth-century English. Except for Robert Hardy and Elizabeth Spriggs, who speak that way anyway.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“The fire alarm went off. Fire engines came racing; we all rushed out on the gravel drive, everyone thinking it was us. In fact, one of the elderly residents of Saltram had left a pan on the oven in her flat. Apparently this happens all the time. The tenant in question is appearing as an extra -- playing one of the cooks.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“Shooting Willoughby carrying Marianne up the path. ... Male strength -- the desire to be cradled again? ... I'd love someone to pick me up and carry me off. Frightening. Lindsay assures me I'd start to fidget after a while. She's such a comfort.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“Give people films, they will forget after a few weeks, but give people ideas, they will assimilate them into their consciousness.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“I could have been killed, and their response is to film me?...In that moment, the myth that every time your picture is taken, a part of your soul is stolen strikes me as a certain truth, because I feel my spirit being sucked out of me, into hundreds of all-seeing lenses that simply want to capture my fear, my anger, my performance.”
― Jeanne Ryan, Nerve

“Shooting Willoughby carrying Marianne up the path. They did it four times. 'Faster,' said Ang [Lee]. They do it twice more. 'Don't pant so much,' said Ang. Greg [Wise (playing Willoughby)], to his great credit, didn't scream.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“Filmmaking has the power to fortify the feeble, unify the divided, raise the abandoned and inspire the ignorant.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“Use filmmaking to eliminate racism – use to it terminate misogyny – use it to destroy homophobia and all other primitiveness.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“Take the clapper and become the alarm that the world so desperately needs.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“Whatever genre you deem suitable for your taste – romance, comedy, action, mystery, sci-fi or anything else, make sure it has the plain everyday human kindness.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“Healthy entertainment does not evoke raw emotions in the mind of a viewer only to make them wreak havoc, rather it guides those emotions in a healthy direction.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Healthy entertainment is a beautiful blend of stimuli that can connect with the viewer at a sentimental level, then sow the seeds of a certain idea or feed the mind with inspiration and courage. In short, healthy entertainment does not evoke raw emotions in the mind of a viewer only to make them wreak havoc, rather it guides those emotions in a healthy direction. This leads to not only an entertained viewer, but also an inspired soul. And that should be the purpose of film-making, and indeed the entire entertainment industry, rather than feeding the general population with garbage.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“The art of filmmaking is the most influential form of art that has ever existed throughout the history of human artistic endeavors.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“A movie is not a movie, it is a potential nuclear furnace of inspiration, courage and conscience.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“Make movies my friend – make nice, inspiring and bold movies that will penetrate the darkest corners of the human mind and illuminate the soul.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“Film gives us a second chance at a first impression.”
― Adrienne Posey

“I make another trip to Rick's bakehouse to show people how he makes his pain au chocolat, that magical, flaky pastry filled with heavenly bites of chocolate. I shoot video of Rick laminating croissant dough, rolling and flattening and folding the butter-filled slab of pastry until the dough is as long as a beach towel and stratified with butter like canyon rock. He cuts it into rectangles and stuffs each one with two fat chunks of bittersweet chocolate inside. He bakes off five sheets in his convection oven, and when the croissants emerge, their golden tops glistening, I have to restrain myself from reaching out from behind the camera to stuff three or five into my face.
As soon as the newsletter goes out the next week, Rick's customer base goes crazy. People line up and down the market thoroughfare, undeterred by the stifling July heat, clamoring for flaky pain au chocolat and crusty sourdough loaves. Day after day, he sells out everything at least thirty minutes before closing, and the chocolate croissants sell out in the first hour.”
― Dana Bate, A Second Bite at the Apple