You learn to do your best writing on story rather than off story. Very often at the beginning of their careers, writers including me do their best dialogue writing off story - the best lines, the best observations - but they haven't got enough to do with the plot to stay in.

You're not always right. You're often wrong. But at least you're looking at it as objectively as you can with as much experience as you can in the moment and saying, "Yeah, I think it's funny" or "No, I don't think it's funny yet."

You want to surround yourself with people who are as dedicated to their discipline as you are to yours and let them do what they do.

It's always hard, but it's always fun to attack a premise that you think is interesting. It does take a few drafts for sure.

I knew I wanted to work in Cinemascope because I find it much more beautiful just in terms of the shape of the screen, the wider image, and it's also less like television, which is important.

You have to accept that the moment you hand a script to a director, even if you've written it as an original script, it becomes his or her movie. That's the way it has to be because the pressures on a director are so staggering and overwhelming that if he or she doesn't have that sort of level of decision making ability, that sort of free reign, the movie simply won't get done. It won't have a vision behind it. It may not be your vision as a screenwriter, but at least it will have a vision.

Believe me, you can be in the middle of a beautiful take and the next thing you know you're awash in people crossing the street. You can't even find your actors.