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As a screenwriter I'm often writing in genres where there have been thousands of movies whereas when I direct movies they tend to be in between genres. They tend to have a little bit of a genre to them, but they're really about the people, and they're people we haven't met before.

John Sayles

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John Sayles
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: September 28
Actor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Schenectady
New York
John Thomas Sayles
Little
Tend
Writing
Havens
Really
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People
Direct
Genres
Movies
Whereas
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Often
Thousands
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More quotes by John Sayles

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To this day, I get rewrite offers where they say: 'We feel this script needs work with character, dialogue, plot and tone,' and when you ask what's left, they say: 'Well, the typing is very good.'
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America is a very divided country now. Not only are there red states and blue states, there are now red facts and blue facts. The right-wing believe in creationism. The left in evolution.
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For me the writing, when I'm going to direct it myself, is really just the first draft, and I don't change it very much I only change it on average about two lines per movie.
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In a movie you have all these logistical problems all these practical problems. But you're also going to have people come who can do things that you can't do, and you get to direct their talents.
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Fahrenheit 9/11 took public domain information that should have been on the news every night and put it in a film that a lot of people went to see. But still Bush has never had to answer those charges.
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The less money and time you have, the more you haveto plan ahead and be careful about your coverage. It's like a gas:it expands or contracts depending on the size of the container.
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Basically, if you could get a good trailer out of the script, Roger had no objection to you making a really good movie. He liked it if you did. He liked the more cleverness and ingenuity you could bring to it. He just wasn't going to give you any more money.
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I probably wouldn't have done as many as I did in one year, which I did when I was trying to raise money.
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Well, acting is cheap I knew all these actors who weren't in the Screen Actors Guild yet, and it happened that they were all just about thirty years old.
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But compared to writing a novel, where you can be God, I did the Bay of Pigs invasion in six pages once, and there were 50,000 guys with boots that I didn't have to pay, and all those extras we didn't have to pay them.
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I see very small movies being financed by crowdfunding. If you're a well-known actor or celebrity of some sort, you can probably raise between one and two million. I don't have that kind of cult [following].
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I don't write [screenplay character] biographies beforehand. I usually go in knowing some sequences: this is where I want to start, this is where I want to end.
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Not that I've always loved the movie when they finally come out, or if they ever come out-because many of them don't come out-but I've gotten to work with really good story editors and stuff like that.
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I never actually do rehearsals. That's one of the reasons that I write those bios and if I can meet with the actors I'll meet them or talk to them on the phone. What I want is for them to come on set knowing their lines and knowing who the character is.
John Sayles
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I don't have a social agenda. I just don't choose to ignore what's in front of me.
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I've always got five or six things that would either make a good feature or TV show. And you just never know. You go and you pitch and it may be exactly what they're looking for, or they may stop you after two sentences and say, Oh, we've already done something just like that.
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I'm never at a loss for new projects.
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I certainly grew up seeing more movies and television than I read books, but when it came time to do the thing itself you don't have to hire a lot of people to sit down and write a book, so that was the story-telling medium that was available to me.
John Sayles
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There were not fifteen people in the story department and twenty-five producers and stuff. And Roger had produced 1,000 movies and directed a couple of hundred, and their comments were always very, very specific.
John Sayles
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I think I got spoiled and that writing a short story and getting it published, or writing a novel and getting it published, you pretty much get to do the first, second and third draft yourself without a whole lot of interference.
John Sayles