I believe today that there is no film and no shot in a film that is worth a squirrel getting a sprained ankle.
William FriedkinI've seen my own films close to a thousand times in one form or another. When you edit them. When you shoot them. Then you run them over and over again for sound and music. Then you'd go to premiere screenings, and have to do promotional screenings in other cities. I can't watch any of my old films.
William FriedkinNone of the chase scenes that I did had any opticals. We had to do all of that physically. The first thing you have to do is see it in your mind's eye. You have to envision it. Imagine someone knitting a sweater or a scarf. They either have a pattern in front of them, or they see a pattern in their mind's eye. Then it's one stitch at a time. That's what shooting a chase is like.
William FriedkinThere are certain things that happen during the production of, I think, every film, that you didn't plan, and often it's better than what you did plan. There's the question of either going with it or not.
William Friedkin