When you start with Super 8, you are everything. You're the DP, the sound man, the effects guy. And what I started understanding, by working for other people, is that the best type of director is someone who rose through the ranks.
Interpretation
Del Toro emphasizes the value of experiencing all roles in filmmaking to become a well-rounded director.
In this quote, Guillermo Del Toro reflects on his early experiences with Super 8 filmmaking, highlighting that being involved in multiple aspects of production—such as cinematography, sound, and special effects—allows a director to gain comprehensive insights into the film-making process. He believes that directors who have worked in various capacities develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for the collaborative nature of filmmaking, ultimately leading to more effective leadership.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture about the importance of hands-on experience in creative fields.
I don't try to sanction other people's joy in monsters. I mean, I think the fact is, humor, fantasy - you know, like fear, desire or laughter - create genres of their own: comedy, melodrama, or erotic films or horror films... The boundaries cannot be defined. It's to each his own.
As a director, I design every movie to be true to itself, and damn it if they like it, and damn it if they don't.
If you ask me, I alternate between truly bizarre, what you would call 'Hollywood' movies and truly bizarre, what you would call 'arthouse' movies.
But I think we are seeing a resurgence of the graphic ghost story like The Others, Devil's Backbone and The Sixth Sense. It is a return to more gothic atmospheric ghost storytelling.
The saddest journey in the world is the one that follows a precise itinerary. Then you're not a traveler. You're a f@@king tourist.
The way they control a population is by pointing at somebody else - whether they're gay, Mexican, Jewish, black - and saying, 'They are different than you. They're the reason you're in the shape you're in. You're not responsible.' And when they exonerate you through vilifying and demonizing someone else, they control you.
No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.
A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, 'If you don't know how to make the right decision, you're not a director.'
The labor movement is organized upon a principle that the strong shall help the weak.
A councilor ought not to sleep the whole night through, a man to whom the populace is entrusted, and who has many responsibilities.
The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground.
I will be vigilant to protect the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court, and I will work to ensure that it upholds the rule of law and safeguards those liberties that make this land one of endless possibilities for all Americans.
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