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The Rule Of Thumb For A Director Or Producer - Which Prevents Them From Just Sticking Their Names On Everything - Is That You Have To Contribute Substantially More Than 50 Percent Of The Character Dialogue And Story.

-Harold Ramis

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The Rule Of Thumb

Harold Ramis

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The Rule Of Thumb For A Director Or Producer - Which Prevents Them From Just Sticking Their Names On Everything - Is That You Have To Contribute Substantially More Than 50 Percent Of The Character Dialogue And Story.

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I'd Rather Do Comedies That Strike At Some Bigger Ideas.

When A Director Writes, There's A Compulsory Arbitration. You Have A Right To Challenge Any Of The Arbitrators, But They Pick Three Of Four Arbitrators Who Read All The Drafts With No Names Attached And Then Allocate Credit.

I Made A Handshake Agreement With My Best Friend In College, Michael Shamberg, Who Is Now A Movie Producer. We Used To Write Shows Together, And We Said, "let's Only Do What's Fun. Let's Never Take A Job Where We Have To Dress Up In A Suit."

We Tell Our Kids That Policemen Are Good And God Protects Us And Our Country Is Noble, And At A Certain Point - And For Some It Comes Quite Early, Five Or Six Years Old - We Start To Realize That It's All A Facade.

I Always Claim That The Writer Has Done 90 Percent Of The Director's Work.

Analyze This Is A Good Movie Because Robert De Niro And Billy Crystal Are Really Good. But Without The Material To Put On The Play, Of Course, They Couldn't Be Good. For Me, It Starts With The Writing.

My Job Is To Come Up With Something That You Like And You Agree With That You Would Play Wholeheartedly. If We Disagree, I May Not Be Doing My Job Correctly.

The Rule Of Thumb For A Director Or Producer - Which Prevents Them From Just Sticking Their Names On Everything - Is That You Have To Contribute Substantially More Than 50 Percent Of The Character Dialogue And Story.

You Can Perceive Life As Tragic, Or You Can Laugh At The Tragedy Of It And That Turns It Into Comedy. It Doesn't Change The Circumstances.

I'd Like To Think I'd Never Do A Gratuitous Fart Joke.

If People Work Together, If They Can Keep A Cooperative Spirit And Use Their Ingenuity And Balance It All With Good Humor And Good Will, Then There's Nothing To Be Afraid Of. That's The Sappy Part Of It, ... On The Other Hand, Every Halloween For Many Years When My Kids Were Trick-or-treating I Would Put On My 'ghostbusters' Jumpsuit With A Police Flashlight To Protect All The Kids From Ghosts.

For Me, Most Comedy Scripts Fail In The Mechanical Playing-out Of The Setup. They'll Pay Lip Service To A Moral Lesson Or A Psychological Progression.

I've Always Had That Overweening Desire To Be Liked By The Audience.

I'm Sure That The Liability For Doing A Tracheotomy Would Be Tremendous. You Make One Mistake, And It's Over. Most Doctors Won't Even Do It.

I've Always Thought That Comedy Was Just Another Dramatic Expression. I Try To Measure The Amount Of Truth In A Work Rather Than Just Looking At The Generic Distinction Between Comedy And Drama. There's A Lot Of Bullshit Drama That Leaves You Totally Cold. And There's A Lot Of Wasted Comedy Time Too. But When You Get Something Honest, It Doesn't Matter What Label You Give It.

No Matter What I Have To Say, I'm Still Trying To Say It In Comedic Form.

If You're Doing Six Takes, Instead Of Doing Six Variations On The Same Words, Why Not Just Throw Out The Words And Make Them Up As You Go Along, If You're Comfortable With It? It Gives The Movies A Slightly Rangier Feeling, And More Of An Accidental Feel, But It Also Makes Them Edgier.

If People Offer Me Decent Roles In Good Films, Of Course I'll Take It. But I Just Didn't Like The Actor Lifestyle. You End Up Focusing All Your Energy On Trying To Get Parts You Don't Even Want.

I'm Not A Believer In The Pratfall. I Don't Think It's Funny Just To Have Someone Fall Down.

It's Like The Old Rule-if You Introduce A Gun Into The First Act Of A Play, It's Going To Be Used In The Third Act. So If You Do A Movie About Criminals, You Have To Accept There's Going To Be Some Action.

Most People Live Somewhere On The Spectrum Of Anxiety And Depression.

I Have A Great Respect For The Moviegoing Experience. It's Such A Unique Thing. You're Not Getting Up And Walking Around The House Or Flipping Channels During The Dull Parts. You're In A Dark Space, And The Movie Fills Most Of Your Field Of Vision. You're Surrounded By Sound, And The Colors Are Deeply Saturated, And Faces Are Fifteen Feet High. If It's Done Well, You're Really Going To Feel Some Big Emotions Or Have Some Big Belly Laughs.

Chicago Still Remains A Mecca Of The Midwest - People From Both Coasts Are Kind Of Amazed How Good Life Is In Chicago, And What A Good Culture We've Got. You Can Have A Pretty Wonderful Artistic Life And Never Leave Chicago.

Most Comedies Are Calculated. They Tend To Pander. They're Not About Anything Important.

The Child Says, "well Geesh, The Institutions That I'm Supposed To Respect - The Church And The Government - They're Telling Me Things That Don't Appear To Be True. Either I'm Crazy Or They're Crazy." That Creates The Absurd Child. The Absurd Child Is One Who Says, "well, I Think They're Crazy." So You Live In This State Of Alienation From Your Culture And Your Society And Your Family Because You See This Rampant Bullshit Around You.

I Learned Over The Years That It's Easy To Appear Smart Referencing Things That People Don't Know.

I Had Developed A Survival Skill Of Using My Wit To Score For Myself. If A Scene Was Dying, I'd Lob In These Little Bombshell Lines That Would Get Me Some Attention And A Laugh Without Really Helping The Scene.

With Both Caddyshack And Vacation, It's Not Like The Subjects Were Serious Enough That They Engaged My Interest For Another Round. I Love The Characters, And The Actors Were Great, But I Didn't See The Need To Make Another Vacation Movie.

You Don't Have To Know Much, Just A Little Bit More Than Everybody Else.

I Never Read Playboy Before I Started Working There And Stopped Reading It The Day I Quit.

Billy Crystal Knows How To Make People Laugh. He's Got 30 Years On Stage... There's No Telling Him What's Funny.

It's A Great Luxury For Me To Be Able To Write On The Films That I Direct, And Kind Of A Nice Thing To Be Able To Write Enough To Get Credit, Which Is Difficult For A Director.

There's Something Very Edgy About Bill Murray Out There Improvising.

I Never Work Just To Work. It's Some Combination Of Laziness And Self-respect.

When You Grow Up In Chicago, Your Whole Family Is Counting On You To Go To College And Do Something Distinguished. The Last Thing You're Thinking Is That You're Going To Make A Career In Show Business.

When You're Young And You First See The Extent And Depth Of The World's Hypocrisy, It's Fun To Go After It. But By The Time You're Sixty, It's So Commonplace. What's The Point In Ridiculing People Anymore? Their Existence Itself Is A Sort Of Sick Joke.

No One Will Laugh At How Great Things Are For Somebody.

When I've Written For Bill Murray - I've Written Six Films For Him - People Would Read It And Say, "oh, That's So Perfectly Bill." He'd Read It And Say, "are You Kidding? I Can't Say These Words." So It's All About Perception.

When You're A Big Enough Part Of The Process That The Writers Guild Gives You A Lot Of Credit, That's A Good Thing. It Tells Me That I've Had A Significant Impact On The Film As A Writer.

Parents Tell Us Things To Protect Us, Or They Educate Us From Their Own Misinformation Or Misconceptions.

I'm Terrified Beyond The Capacity For Rational Thought.

Find The Most Talented Person In The Room And If It's Not You, Go Stand Next To Him. Hang Out With Him. Try To Be Helpful.

Nothing Reinforces A Professional Relationship More Than Enjoying Success With Someone.

Professional Relationships

Multiplicity Was A Movie That Tested Really Well. People Seeing The Movie Really Liked It, But Then The Studio Couldn't Market It. We Opened On A Weekend With Nine Other Films.

We Were Tremendously Encouraged By The Testing Of Analyze That. Audiences Loved It. They Were Telling Us That They Liked It As Much As The Original. We Recorded The Laughs In The Theater.

I Did A Comedy With Al Franken About His Character Stuart Smalley, Which Was Really About Alcoholism And Addiction And Codependency. It Had Some Painful Stuff In It. When We Showed It To Focus Groups, Some Of Them Actually Said, "if I Want To See A Dysfunctional Family, I'll Stay Home."

I Loved Writing And Performing, But The Idea Of Doing It For A Living Seemed So Remote. But I Eventually Let It Devolve To The Point Where It Was The Only Thing I Could Do.

I Realized That My Righteous Indignation Was A Form Of Entertainment For Me. I Loved Getting Pissed Off At Injustice. I Didn't Do Anything About It, I Just Liked The Feeling Of Being Pissed Off.

I Think Of Myself As A Real Writer, Not Just Someone Who Dabbles In It, So I Deserve Some Credit.

My Only Conclusion About Structure Is That Nothing Works If You Don't Have Interesting Characters And A Good Story To Tell.

Groundhog Day Was Pretty Clean. It May Have To Do With Some Puritanical Feeling That Comedy Is A Forbidden Pleasure In A Certain Way. They Make You Laugh, And Laughter Is Somehow An Inferior Emotion To Tragedy.

As An Actor, You're Completely At The Mercy Of Other People. You Basically Go Begging For The Opportunity To Work. As A Writer, At Least Nobody Can Tell Me What To Do. I Can Write What I Want. I Might Not Sell It, But At Least I'm In Control.

The Trick With Sequels Is, You Have To Give People What They Liked Before, Yet Be Innovative Enough So They Don't Feel Like They're Seeing The Same Movie.

I Had A Lot Of Fun Working With John Candy. We Had A Pretty Good Rapport.

The Cutting Room Is Where You Discover The Optimal Length Of The Movie.

I Think Satire Is A Luxury Of Literate Middle-class People. People Who Are Well Fed And Relatively Secure In Their Beds Can Laugh At Their Troubles. They Can Enjoy Sitcoms. For Those Who Aren't Quite So Lucky, Well, The Irony Might Be Lost On Them.

You Can't Love Somebody Into A State Of Mental Health. A Lot Of People Get Into Serious Relationships Thinking They're Going To Heal Someone With Their Love And Attention, But It Doesn't Usually Work Out That Way.

If Chevy Chase Had Not Been An Actor, He Might Have Been A Very Popular Guy In Advertising Or Whatever Field He Would Have Gone Into, Because Of His Charisma.

The Comic Edge Of Ghostbusters Will Always Be The Same. It's Still Treating The Supernatural With A Totally Mundane Sensibility. In The World Of Ghostbusting, There Are Certain Givens. You're Always Going To Have Some New Invented Technology, Some Pseudo-science That Sounds Right Because We Drop Enough Familiar Terms From Physics And Engineering, And Pseudo-methodology, Something That People Will Think They May Have Read Something About Before.

First And Foremost, You Have To Make The Movie For Yourself. And That's Not To Say, To Hell With Everyone Else, But What Else Have You Got To Go On But Your Own Taste And Judgment?

Taste And Judgment

I Always Think That The Writer Is Doing The Vast Majority Of The Director's Work, In A Sense. If You're A Writer Who Is Also Going To Direct, You're Doing All Your Preparation: You're Already Visualizing Everything, You're Imagining How The Lines Are Going To Be Read, You See The Blocking In Your Head, And You Know The Rhythm And The Pacing.

When Someone's An Actor And You're An Actor, You Meet Them And You Feel Like You Know Them. We're In The Same Business, And We All Speak The Same Comedy Language.

I've Got To Find A Compromise Where I Don't Feel Compromised. I've Got To Find Something Equally Good That They Don't Feel Uncomfortable With. At A Certain Point, It's No Longer About What I Thought Was Right, But It's About This New Discovery That Happens With The Actors. It's Nice When The Actor Is Also A Writer.

I Try To Measure The Amount Of Truth In A Work Rather Than Just Looking At The Generic Distinction Between Comedy And Drama.

You Can't Love Somebody Into A State Of Mental Health.

I Want To Explore Marriage Without The Usual Hallmark Card Platitudes. Life Is Difficult, And I Like Movies That Acknowledge That.

We Are All Several Different People. There Are Different Aspects Of Our Nature That Are Competing.

As Much As I Liked Acting For Its Playfulness And The Reward Of Hearing Big Laughs Wash Over You On A Stage, I Always Felt I Should Do Something That I Could Control.

How One Handles Success Or Failure Is Determined By Their Early Childhood.

I've Been Directing For 25 Years Almost, And I've Only Directed Nine Films In That Time Because I Like To Be Careful.

I've Always Thought That Comedy Was Just Another Dramatic Expression.

A Friend Of Mine Is Trying To Do A Documentary Where He Brings Jewish And Arab Comedians To Occupied Territories In Israel. He Wants To Do Shows As A Way Of Finding Some Comedic Common Denominator. When He Proposed The Idea To One Of The Officials At The Jenin Refuge Camp, The Guy Just Stared At Him And Said, "this Is Not A Joke To Us. We Don't Think That Laughing Is The Answer."

A Psychologist Said To Me, There Are Only Two Important Questions You Have To Ask Yourself. What Do You Really Feel? And, What Do You Really Want? If You Can Answer Those Two, You Probably Can Leave Your Neuroses Behind You.

I'm Thinking Of Doing A Marital Comedy For One Of The Studios, But I Want It To Be So Painful That It'll Have A Profound Effect On Married Couples Who See It Together.

Some People Have A Fear Of Rejecting All The Security That Comes With Family, Church And State. They Become Fundamentalists.

Ive Never Been A Big Believer In Ghosts Or The Spirit World, And For Me, That Was Part Of The Point Of The Movie, ... What The Ghostbusters Represented Was The Triumph Of Human Courage And Human Ingenuity. People Create Their Own Monsters. Our Fears Come From Within Us, Not Outside.

I Collect Spores, Molds, And Fungus.

Once You're Alienated, You're On Your Own. That Takes You To The World Of The Existential, Where Things Just Kind Of Float.

Most Comedy Is Not Very Ambitious. You Probably Can't Name More Than A Handful Of Comedies That Would Qualify For Best Picture.

We All Wish We Could Be In More Than One Place At The Same Time. People With Families Feel Guilty All The Time-if We Spend Too Much Time With Our Family, We Feel We're Not Working Hard Enough.

I'm A Writer-director-actor, Which I've Always Kind Of Enjoyed. I Compared It To The Olympic Biathlon. "not Only Can He Cross-country Ski, But He's A Terrific Marksman As Well." I Want People To Say, "you Mean That Writer Performed A Tracheotomy?" That's Right, I Do Everything.

Life Has All Of These Contradictory Feelings And Contradictory Results. People Spend Their Whole Lives Struggling To Get What They Think They Want, And Even If They Get It, They Find That It's Either Not What They Wanted, Or It Comes With So Many Unwanted Consequences. We're Always Shut Off From Pure Joy.

I Look For The Meaning In What's Funny, And I Look For What's Funny About Things That Are Meaningful To Me.

The Times Change, And To The Extent That Comedy Captures The Spirit Of The Times, It Will Enjoy Success.

Whatever Bliss We Think We're Going To Find, We May Find It In Brief Flashes, Fleeting Moments That Come And Go. There's An Impossibility To Nailing Down Any Good Feeling.

Acting Is All About Big Hair And Funny Props... All The Great Actors Knew It. Olivier Knew It, Brando Knew It.

Comedy Is Essentially Made By Young Men, Or Older Men With Some Form Of Arrested Development, For Young Men Or Immature Older Men.

That's One Of The Great Things About Dvd: In Addition To Reaching People Who Didn't Catch The Movie In Theaters, You Get To Have This Interaction Of Sorts.

Well, For Me, It's The Relationship Between Comedy And Life - That's The Edge I Live On, And Maybe It's My Protection Against Looking At The Tragedy Of It All. It's Seeing Life In Balance. Comedy And Tragedy Co-exist. You Can't Have One Without The Other. I'm Of The School That Anything Can Be Funny, If Seen From A Comedic Point Of View.

Never Hit Anyone In Anger, Unless You're Absolutely Sure You Can Get Away With It.

Everyone Has Experienced Laughing At A Funeral, And Not Even Inappropriately. It Could Be A Response To A Moment Of Absurdity Or Some Fond Memory. We're Human Beings So We Understand That Laughter And Crying Aren't Always Disparate Emotions.

At A Certain Point, You Have To Convince The Actors That You've Done The Right Thing. The Way I Work, If I Can't Convince Them, I've Got To Move On. I Can't Coerce Them Or Browbeat Them.

I Have Tons Of Rescuing Fantasies Based On The Movies I Saw When I Was Growing Up. I Wanted To Be Robin Hood And The Three Musketeers And The Scarlet Pimpernel.

My First Few Films Were Institutional Comedies, And You're On Pretty Safe Ground When You're Dealing With An Institution That Vast Numbers Of People Have Experienced: College, Summer Camp, The Military, The Country Club.

I've Tried To Stay Away From Mild Satire. I Want An Audience To Feel Something More Powerful For Their Ten Bucks. If They're Going To Spend Two Hours With Me, And Trust Me To Lead Them Around, I'd Like To Take Them Someplace Special.

I Used To Be Married To A Woman Who Pursued Every Spiritual Trend With Tremendous Passion And Dragged Me Along. I Don't Believe In Anything. I'd Seen Mediums And Readers.

The First Comedy Screenplay That I Wrote Was Animal House And I Always Thought I Could And Should Be A Director But No One Was About To Give Me That Opportunity On Animal House.

I Was The Little Guy Who Knew How To Tie A Necktie. It Came From Having Absentee Parents. They Were Tremendously Loving And Caring People Who, By Circumstance, Had To Go To Work.

I Feel A Big Obligation To The Audience, Almost In A Moral Sense, To Say Something Useful. If I'm Going To Spend A Year Of My Life On These Things, I Want Something That I Feel That Strongly About.

I Believe Things Happen That Can't Be Explained, But So Many People Seem Intent On Explaining Them. Everyone Has An Answer For Them. Either Aliens Or Things From The Spirit World.

Just Expressing Contempt For Your Leaders Doesn't Really Accomplish Anything.

Films Are Big Hits When They Touch A Lot Of People. Things Are Not Funny In A Vacuum, They're Funny Because We Respond To Some Personal Dislocation, Some Embarrassment, Some Humiliation, Some Pain We've Suffered, Or Some Desire We Have.

I've Never Taken A Script To The Stage Or To Principal Photography And Said, "this Is Perfect. This Is As Good As It Can Possibly Be." It's Not Shakespeare, You Know; You Know It Can Probably Be Better.

Somebody Once Told Me That If You Laugh At A George Bush Joke, Or You Send An Email Cartoon To Your Friends That Makes Bush Look Like A Fool, You Feel Like You've Done Something Significant. But Really, What Have You Actually Done? Just Expressing Contempt For Your Leaders Doesn't Really Accomplish Anything.

There's A Personal Story Of My Own That I Will Write At Some Point, And It's A Film That I Will Happily Make. It Could Very Well Be The Next Thing I Do, Unless Someone Shows Me Something Great.

You Can't Not Have Feelings About Country Clubs, Whichever Side You're On.

Whenever A Critic Mentions The Salary Of An Actor, I'm Thinking, He's Not Talking About The Movie.

I Met Someone Who Said They'd Figured Out My Genre: "madcap Redemption Comedy." I'll Buy That.

Stand-up Is Every Man For Himself; You Learn From Hanging Out At These Clubs And Watching Other Guys, And Then Trying Not To Be Like Them.

Where's The Great Pay? Where's The Travel? Where's The Winnebago, Goddamnit!

I Can't Imagine A Successful Comedy Movie Without A Successful Comedy Performance At The Heart Of It.

My Characters Aren't Losers. They're Rebels. They Win By Their Refusal To Play By Everyone Else's Rules.

The Comic Impulse Is Sometimes A Reaction To Sadness. You Feel Like You Can Make One Choice Or The Other.

I Have No Trouble Selling Out—i’m A Benevolent Hack, In A Certain Way—but I Want To Pander For Something I Believe In.

Life Doesn't Care About Your Vision. You Just Gotta Roll With It.

It Doesn't Take Any Longer To Improvise 10 Takes Than It Takes To Shoot 10 Takes Of The Same Thing. It Turns Out To Be Just As Responsible From A Business Point Of View As Anything Else.

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