As soon as digital editing came about, I immediately made the switch to digital.
BARRY LEVINSONI’m fascinated by documentaries, to begin with. Because of the nature of television, as opposed to theatrical, documentaries can be in this long form and take you on a journey.
More Barry Levinson Quotes
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There’s no downside to having too much experience.
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I think we are seeing a radical shift in the business in general. The studios are making much more of the real big extravaganzas and there are other kinds of films that are coming out. I think you are going to begin to see more diversification that we’ve seen in the past.
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First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.
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A lot of time mistakes are very interesting – you look for the behaviour that’s not the one you expect.
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I don’t know that you can do it as a satire. I mean, the business is crazy enough as it is. It’s like doing Wag The Dog – we took a thing that was almost completely absurd on one level, and then ultimately those things came about.
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Ronald Reagan was this actor who was going to be president, and he was very charming. What he had was, he talked about America in ways that got people all caught up in it. He was creating this America – it could even be the mythical “America” – that we subscribe to.
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I do know when you look at some ballplayer and all of a sudden he is the size of a truck something is wrong.
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I think certain movies work and that is part of the magic of it all. We can’t truly define why something succeeds.
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Even back in the ’90s, I shot certain things on something that wasn’t digital then, but it was on VHS with a smaller camera and we would up it to film.
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I never really wanted to be an actor. And that was the beginning of it, I began to write things down and eventually became a writer on a television show.
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I would give the cameras to the kids in the swimming pools and they would play with them, and then I would collect them and we would upload it. If you’re in the process, you’re there.
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You don’t always have to have the ending, but you want to have a satisfactory conclusion.
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Studios just sometimes make decisions on their own that you’re always flabbergasted by. It just happens that way for whatever reason – not even pointing fingers, it just is.
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I always think that there is the good and the bad of it all.
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I’m fascinated by documentaries, to begin with. Because of the nature of television, as opposed to theatrical, documentaries can be in this long form and take you on a journey.
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It’s always hard to explain why an audience ultimately responds to a movie.
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I thought a great line in the What Just Happened movie said, “We’re just the mayonnaise.”
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We’re never going to be the ultimate-insider look. You can do 50 insider looks at this Hollywood business, and the satire didn’t intrigue me. I think others can do that.
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I think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it’s getting.
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All I try to do is create an atmosphere that seems comfortable enough, that it removes tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free then behaviour happens, small moments happen and that’s what ultimately works the best for me.
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I’ve had a lot of movies that didn’t get great numbers on test screening, but a lot of times the film was able to survive, or the studio still stayed and supported it.
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I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.
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I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.
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I play around with human things, human relationships and that, and allow that kind of talk to work in that way, on that level.
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Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.
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There was a time when I said, “I’m going to go do a television thing,” after doing all these theatrical films, and heard, “Television? Why are you going to go back to television?” It’s an interesting place.
BARRY LEVINSON