You should never settle for what you think is just good. You should drive the editors and writers and everybody nuts until it's great. And if you don't go for great, you won't end up with good. You've got to go beyond your wildest dreams because the exigencies of filmmaking are going to smash you into the ordinary.
Fred SchepisiYou're learning the whole time. Halfway through a movie, you've got a lot of ideas, a lot of things that maybe you've learned and that you then wish you could apply, but you can't. You just have to finish the movie in that world that you're in. Maybe what you've learned you can apply somewhere else.
Fred SchepisiEverybody you work with sees what you're doing from a different point of view, a very specific point of view. So, if someone is lighting, they're seeing it from that point of view. A production designer is seeing it from the placement of furniture that tells you about the character. Everything that goes into the room should tell you about the person who lives in that room.
Fred SchepisiI'm married to an artist. I get a lot of inspiration from art, from the lighting in art, from the compositions in art, from the textures, and all of that. I'm always playing with it.
Fred SchepisiSometimes I use words to throw you from once scene to the other, and sometimes I use words to pull you from one scene to the other. You might not be aware of it, but I may have overlapping words one way or the other. So, I'm actually using words.
Fred SchepisiThe day you shoot something, everything changes. You still have the same overall vision and approach. You create a world that you're going to be true to or the film tells you what you're going to do. And so, it's like you've got a philosophy of what you're doing. You try and have that changing texturally over the movie.
Fred Schepisi