Somebody said, 'Roger doesn't know how to spend money.' And I thought, 'I don't spend money because I don't have it!' If I had it, I could spend money! That's about the only time I was told that! Roger Corman More Quotes by Roger Corman More Quotes From Roger Corman Maybe it's just a matter of getting older and being aware that the market for medium-budget and low-budget films, which is of course what I spent most of my life making, has diminished. And maybe the quantity of ideas has diminished a little bit. Roger Corman getting-older littles ideas My father was an engineer, .. But I found out that the film critics for the Stanford Daily got free passes for all the films. So I became first an assistant critic and then the main film critic. Those free passes changed my life. Roger Corman film-critics criticism father Horror films have been with us forever, so you can't say I originated that in any way, but it sort of brought back a classical way to make a horror film. Roger Corman horror forever way I'm not going to shoot seven days a week. I think it's counterproductive. I think you're going to have people stumbling around after a couple of weeks. Roger Corman couple people thinking There are eleven or twelve or thirteen cities in China with populations of over 10 million people and most people in the West have never even heard of these cities. Roger Corman west cities people First, you have to be intelligent. I have never met a successful director who isn't intelligent. A director who is not intelligent might have one hit picture, but he won't be able to follow it up. So I look for intelligence. Roger Corman intelligent successful Somebody who moved up very fast was Jim Cameron, who was a young guy out of - I think he came from Arizona, from some community college there, and he was building model spaceships, on a picture called Battle Beyond the Stars. Roger Corman community college thinking I think anybody who's working in a creative medium is working partially with their conscious mind, partially with their unconscious mind. So, my unconscious mind may be a little more distorted and violent than I am aware of. Roger Corman creative mind thinking I remember the first film I reviewed for the Daily was a John Ford Western. I think it was My Darling Clementine, but I am not certain. And I was just impressed by, first, the story itself. I didn't know that much about films. But the acting, the director. And particularly, the cinematography, the black-and-white use of exteriors, I noted particularly. Roger Corman acting remember thinking When I started I had no knowledge of films whatsoever. I was an engineering major at Stanford. And I found out as a senior that they had two film critics on the Stanford Daily, and they got free passes to all the theaters in Palo Alto. So I thought, I'll do that, and I became a film critic. And then I became interested in films. But I had no time to study anything in that area because I was a senior, just finishing up as engineering. Roger Corman senior film study There's always something that draws you away from the original script. Roger Corman There was a fairly big difference between Detroit and Beverly Hills. I remember this. Detroit actually was a prosperous bustling city when we moved here in 1941. But the first day in Detroit, you always wore a shirt and a tie to school. And I wore a shirt and a tie to Beverly Hills High School, and a girl came up to me and said, "Where are you from?" And I said, "Detroit." And she said, "And you won't be wearing a tie tomorrow, will you?" And I said, "You're absolutely correct." So that was my first adjustment to a slightly more casual environment. Roger Corman girl tomorrow school I was young, so I was part of youth culture. The years went by, I became older and no longer part of youth culture, and I became more dependent upon the young people in the office and my own children. Roger Corman office children people Martin Scorsese was one of the few who had not been an assistant. Most of the guys had been an assistant and worked their way up. But I had seen an underground picture he had made in New York, a black-and-white film. I had done a picture for American International, about a Southern woman bandit, the Ma Barker story, and it was very successful, and I had left to start my own company, and they wanted me to make another one. Roger Corman southern guy successful As a producer, I probably am a little stronger than most, since I was a director originally. Roger Corman stronger littles directors I think one of the reasons movies are the quintessential modern art form is that it is partially a business. The director needs a crew - the writer, the producer, etcetera - and to have that, he needs money. Roger Corman directors art thinking Jim Cameron is proof that if you are good, you'll get promoted. Roger Corman cameron proof ifs
