Quentin Tarantino’s Top 10 Rules For Success

– Yeah, okay I’m a big fish in a puddle, so what.

All right, they’re not doing anything.

You make a god damned kick ass movie and you take it

all over the the (bleep) planet Earth.

Now, true I’m I’m making specific films,

and if you make a specific film that’s not

everything for everybody you’re going to turn some people off.

I grandiose my way out of fear.

How do you get that vision that’s in your head

how do you get it on the screen?

I worked for, God, three years on a 16 millimeter

film that ended up becoming nothing but guitar picks.

You also can’t just, I mean when the going gets tough

not give up on your vision.

Do a heist film, deliver the goods as a heist film,

but it’s a heist film where you never see the heist.

Now that I’ve written the first pass on it

what do I think about it?

How can I make it better?

Is there another element I can bring into it?

You can’t make a 14 year old girl coming

of age movie in Australia without having

a car chase break out at some point.

– He’s an American film maker and actor.

His film have garnered both critical and commercial success.

He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

for his contributions to the film industry.

He’s Quentin Tarantino and here are his

top 10 rules for success.

(air rushes)

(thuds)

– I got a, I started working at this video store,

it’s pretty much what you’re talking about

around that time.

And, it was great at first because I’d always

hated day jobs and stuff.

And so, I got a day job and it ended up

being pretty good, but admittedly I was there

for five years.

At a certain point it was a narcotic.

All right, I didn’t have to keep pursuing my dreams

because it’s not what I want to do, but it’s sort

of kind of close.

And, if I didn’t have an artist’s soul burning in me

I could have made myself happy with that.

If I didn’t have an artist’s soul burning

to get out I could have walked backwards

a couple steps and just done that.

And, it would have been a fulfilling,

well to anybody else it would have been a fulfilling life.

It wouldn’t have been for me ’cause I wouldn’t know

and I would have had something to say that

I didn’t get a chance to say.

But, it did put me to sleep for a while.

And, I’ve always just thought, I mean what really

got everything kind of truly going for me,

you can point at a lot of different things.

But, the bottom line is the fact that I realized

that even the group of people I hung around with

they were all great, great, great fellas and great gals.

But, it was easy for me to think that I was doing

a lot because I was doing more to try to move myself

forward than they were.

But, that’s not, okay I’m a big fish in a puddle,

so what, all right, they’re not doing anything, all right.

So yeah, I’m doing more than them, but I realized

that actually I need to get my ass out to Hollywood

and meet other people who are in my category

or working a little higher.

And, I should be the weakest link in my chain

that I have and that’ll make me be stronger

and make me run faster.

I mean, like an analogy I’ve always used is

all right if you run the 100 yard dash with people

that can’t run as fast as you, yeah you’ll win

hands down you know that.

But, if you run with people much faster than you

all right, you might come in last every single time

but you’re time will be better because they’re

making you run all the faster.

They’re making you dig down just a little bit more

it doesn’t matter that you won your time is faster.

And, that’s what I knew I had to do.

I had to get out of loserville and throw myself

into a place where like this is what the (bleep)

do for a living.

– Do you think it’s still possible for an up

and coming filmmaker to go the route that you guys

went and still be successful?

– That’s a good question.

What do you think?

– Make Reservoir Dogs.

(laughs)

– That’s a tough, that’s a tough–

– Actually, I’m not even being a smart ass.

That was a (bleep) kick ass movie all right.

You make a god damn kick ass movie and you can take

it all over the (bleep) planet Earth, not America,

not (bleep) Las Angeles, not New York,

the planet (bleep) Earth.

And, everyone will know it.

– There is a lot more competition than there was

when I was like kicking around with El Mariachi,

so you’ve got, there’s just a lot more to do these days.

You have a lot more competition because everybody’s

got a camera now and everybody can edit.

It’s just it’s tough, I don’t know but the state of

independent filmmaking changes just like filmmaking changes.

– Yeah, but at the same time yeah there’s a lot more

competition but also those crappy movies aren’t competition

if the (bleep) thing is like (bleep) dynamite.

– Yeah, yo true.

– All those shit is, yeah there’s a lot of people

out there doing stuff but if it’s like waves

on the (bleep) beach all right.

You make a piece of nitro that you throw

in an audience’s lap, people notice.

And, people ask me from time to time,

“Do you make a movie with an audience in mind?”

And, my answer is yes I do, all right,

but the audience I have in mind isn’t some faceless

blobs that I’m trying to second guess.

It’s me– – Kind of like a focus group.

– Yeah, it’s me, I’m the audience.

I’m the guy that goes out and pays $7 or $8 in New York

to go and see a movie.

If I’m excited about seeing a movie I see it

on opening day, all right?

I am the audience, all right?

And, I know what I want to see.

And, I was betting and I was a little surprised

at how many there were, I was betting that there

were other people like me out there, all right?

Now true, I’m making specific films.

And, if you make a specific film that’s not everything

for everybody you’re going to turn some people off, all right?

But, you’re going to turn some people on, too.

– When you experience moments of self doubt

how do you approach getting out of that dark place?

– [Woman] Good question.

– I grandiose my way out of fear.

(laughs)

– [Man] If you can imagine that.

(laughs)

– [Woman] It’s a good way, it’s charming.

– It’s like literally it’s like, okay I’m going to do

one of the greatest car chases of all time.

And, if I don’t I’m not as talented as I thought I was.

And, I will realize that there is a ceiling to

my talent, right now I don’t think there is,

but if I don’t do, (laughs)

but if it’s not one of the greatest car chases

of all time then I failed and there is a ceiling

on my talent, I’m not as good as I thought I was.

And, I said that to everybody.

And, was I scared?

(bleep) yeah, I had trepidation going all the way,

’cause it’s mine to fail.

And, it’s failing in front of the mirror, too,

’cause I’ll know if I did it or not.

And, I’ll be like, “Okay, you are not as good

“as you thought you were.”

And, that got me to Mount Everest.

– That’s true, and at one point he goes,

“Robert, can you imagine you and me doing this

“car chase together, how great it’s going to be?”

And I’m like, “Hey man, you’re on your own brother.”

(laughs)

I ain’t going out there man, I’ve got five (bleep) kids.

I’m not going no hundred mile an hour bull (bleep).

You want to live the Vanishing Point dream, buddy, live it.

(laughs)

And, he did it all by himself and I’m so (bleep)

proud of him.

– You see movies and they can be full of vision

and you want your movies to be like that.

But, you see these other movies that don’t have

any vision but I’m sure the director tried.

So, what’s the difference between this guy versus that guy?

How was this guy able to get this on the screen

and how was this guy not able to get this on the screen?

I’m sure if I talked to that guy he’d tell all

these, I’m sure he wanted that, who knows.

And, I was afraid of being that guy.

I wanted to be that guy.

And, well Terry Gilliam definitely has a vision,

no two, three, four ways about it.

So, we were at Sundance and it was like a lunch

going on at the picnic tables there else F.O.ed

and it was just me and him talking, which was a thrill.

And, I go, “Look, you have a very specific vision

“in your movies and it’s right there on the screen.

“How do you do that?

“How do you get that vision that’s in your head

“how do you get it on the screen?”

And he said, “Well Quentin, you have to understand

“as a director you don’t have to do that.

“Your job is to hire talented people who can do that.

“You hire a cinematographer who can get the kind

“of quality that you want.

“You don’t have to be able to know how to take

“the lights and move then around to create an effect,

“you hire a talented costume designer who can give

“the colors that you need and the flamboyance or not

“that you want.

“You hire a production designer who can do that.

“Your job is explaining your vision.

“Your job is articulating to them what you want

“on the screen.”

And then, all of a sudden the whole mystical shamanistic

thing that I thought directing was just went boop.

And, I realized I could do that, that it wasn’t this

Merlin like magic kit that I needed to know

the right spell in order to conjure.

Oh, I can describe what I want, I know what’s in my head.

That’s the easiest part, I’m good at describing.

To get the passion, if you’ve got the passion to do it

and you do it and it doesn’t like work out

I worked for, God, three years on 16 millimeter film

that ended up becoming nothing but guitar picks.

And, I was very disappointed when I realized

it wasn’t any good.

But, it was my film school, all right?

And, I actually got away really cheap.

When it was all over I knew how to make a movie.

I didn’t want to show anybody that,

but I had the experience.

I had it a lot cheaper than I would have gotten

if I had gone to film school.

If you’re really going to be an artist with you own voice

and you want to do different things and try

not the standard thing then the biggest balancing act

you have to pull isn’t really even being a good

filmmaker, we’ll just say that you have that,

is that balancing act between sticking to your visions,

sticking to your voice but not being some asshole that

can only hear the sound of his own voice.

And that’s, I mean, it’s all right there.

That’s it, you got to be able to listen to people.

You got to be able to hear what their saying,

but you also can’t just, I mean when the going

gets tough not give up on your vision.

There’s a French director named Jean-Pierre Melville

who came out in the 50s and basically started doing

a whole series, he was like a total entertainment director.

He did a whole series of crime films always like

set in Paris or Marseilles or something.

They were basically the Warner Brothers’ Bogart Cagney

films all right, but completely set to this like

French Parisian rhythm.

And, they started, (speaking foreign language).

And they’re great, and they work very much in

the same way that like Sergio Leone’s films do

where they take a genre that like we know left,

right, forwards, up, and down, and backwards, all right,

but they do with a whole different style

and a whole different perspective.

And, here they’ve basically reinvented the genre.

They’ve created something new that didn’t exist before.

Now, that’s what I’m always kind of trying to do

with my genre films.

I don’t know if I’m succeeding or not,

but that’s the attempt.

– To? – To take something

you’ve seen before, I love it, I respect it,

and I’m going to deliver the goods.

I’m not just some arty guy going off,

but I’m delivering the goods but I’m also trying to

reinvent it in a way.

All right, do something, do it in a much different way

you’ve ever seen before.

Like, in the case of Reservoir Dogs.

And again, it’s not just trying to just be a clever boy.

It’s not just a clever idea it’s got to work dramatically.

All right, but like do a heist film, deliver the goods

as a heist film but it’s a heist film where

you never see the heist.

That’s just my goofy way of doing it.

I always say like if I was going to do like

a hunchback movie the guy would get like have an operation

at like the beginning of the film,

the guy that used to be the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I started writing like say around 10 10:30 11,

something like that.

And then, I write till about five, six, or seven

something like that.

But, around that time, around five or six

I’m going to stop for the day.

And, what I do is I stop for the day and then

after a little bit of time of unwinding

I go into my pool and I keep it all

nice and warm there and everything,

And so, I just kind of hang out in the pool

and if I’m not done with something I think, okay,

what do I want to do?

How do I want to go further with this?

Now that I’ve written the first pass on it

what do I think about it?

How can I make it better?

Is there another element I can bring into it?

Add too much, whatever, I’m just looking

at it critically.

And, maybe I come up with some neat ideas.

And then, I get out of the pool and I make notes

on those neat ideas that I came up with,

by thinking and meditating about it.

It actually is meditating.

And then, that’s my work tomorrow when I get up.

Or, if I’ve finished a scene, okay boom, man

that’s done now that part of the story is done.

Now, I go in the pool and I go, “Okay, what happens next?

“what’s the next thing?”

And then, I usually come up with like a pretty good

idea and then I make my notes and then

that’s the next day’s work.

And, that was never really the way I did it

and that has become exclusively the way I did

Inglorious Bastards and Django and this

and it truly brings a lot of joy to my life.

It’s a really, really lovely, lovely way to work.

It makes me feel really happy.

The American car chases that we grew up loving

in the 70s like The Driver or Bullet or French Connection

they were location based, that was part of it

the fact that the chasing is happening in

downtown LA a night where it turns into

a ghost town in The Driver.

Or even like colors, the fact that it’s through Watts,

that’s a deal that’s a thing, all right?

But then, once the Australians got involved in it

they revolutionized car chases.

And, I’m not just talking about Mad Max.

I mean you can’t make a 14 year old girl coming of age

movie in Australian without having a car chase

break out at some point.

(laughs)

But, the thing that they did that was so great

was location oriented, is the (bleep) Outback.

Everything looks like the (bleep) same, all right.

So, all of a sudden they didn’t have drive by shots.

Everything you were in the chase.

You were with the cars constantly every second.

It was like pussy to put a car off the side of road

and have them (vocalizes).

They were with them and so I wanted to actually do that.

I wanted to do the Australian style and bring in there,

but then there’s even one more difference

and that is who’s chasing who.

– Right. – All right?

Most of the time it’s the protagonist is being chased

by a bunch of cops like in Blues Brothers

or something like that.

You’re being chased by somebody.

But, the most exciting chases, the ones that

you’re on the edge of your seat “Yeah, get em,

“get ’em, get ’em, get ’em,” all right is when

the protagonist is chasing the person

and you want that person to get caught.

That’s French Connection, that’s what makes

French Connection so cause you want Popeye Doyle

to get that bastard. – Exactly.

– All right, and those were always more emotionally

connected when you were following the hero.

Well, I have both in mine.

(laughs)

I have the girls being chased, I have girls chasing.

So, I tried to hit all those emotional bases.

– Thank you guys so much for watching.

I made this video because The Morrow Brothers

asked me to.

So, if there’s a famous entrepreneur that

you want me to profile next leave it in the comments

below and I’ll see what I can do.

I also love to know which of Quentin Tarantino’s

top 10 rules had the biggest impact on you,

leave it in the comments and I’ll join the discussion.

And, one last thing my person goal with this channel

is to get it to one million subscribers.

So anything you can think of to help share it,

tweet it, comment, give it to some friends,

add it to playlists.

I really, really, really appreciate it.

Thank you guys so much, continue to believe

and I’ll see you soon.

(air rushes) (thuds)

– Well, I have to say all that criticism that

came out it ended up being kind of a good thing

because one of the things I wanted to do is I wanted

to actually start a conversation about slavery

about America’s role in it.

And, to actually take an audience member from

the 21st century and stick them in the antebellum

south and have a sense of what America

was like back then.

And, so even the people that have been,

have criticized the movie and so a lot of people

don’t like, and I can understand that,

a lot of people do like it.

And, they’ve been kind of going back and forth

and that back and forth is really what I really

wanted for the end of the day of this movie.

And, I hope that actually even continues

for the next few years.

It truly is a situation where we just–

– Like the 70s.

– Yeah, exactly.

We would truly, yeah, because he was my audience

and I was his audience and everything.

And, he was like the perfect sounding board.

So, we really would like inspire each other

to go further to like, “Oh, this oh Robert’s

“going to love this.”

All right, I’d read him this and then he’d come up

with like, “Oh man, that’s going to be so cool.

“And the greatest fun fight never heard.”

I remember that, the silencer gun fight

you had at one point.

(laughs)

And actually, it was the Sony lot so like Versailles,

that Cuban place was right across the street.

So, we’d like web spin all day then go at Versailles

at night and eat and just talk about how we

were going to take over Hollywood.

A reporter all of a sudden will say, “We want to do

“a big in depth story on Quentin.

“We want to just spend some time with him

“and have him do what he does during his day.”

What I do during my day is I go out to

restaurants and I go to movies, that’s what I do.

And, I hang out with my friends and stuff.

I’m not into sports, I don’t like sports.

Anything with a ball, no good, all right?

I’m not into sports, I’m not into cars

or anything like that.

I mean I’m into driving a car, but I’m not

into like, I don’t collect cars or make model cars

or anything like that.

I’m into movie stuff and horror stuff

and like I said just hanging out with my friends

and watching TV and messing around.

And now, I’m into travel, I like traveling.

I love traveling, I love being here in London, that’s great.

Yeah, I love going different places and stuff.

But, that’s it, that’s kind of what I like to do.

The best thing is now that I’m making a living

in the industry I have a little bit of money

is and you have to see before when I didn’t have

any money at all, all I spent my money on

was movie stuff anyway.

Buying videos, buying records, buying movie posters,

I have a big movie poster collection, buying all

that memorabilia, buying all that crap.

When I didn’t have any money to spend

I spent my rent money on that stuff.

See now I got more money to spend on it

and it’s tax deductible because it’s all

in the industry so I get it all.

I have much more money to spend.

I can buy damn near anything I want, all right,

and it’s all written off at the end of the year.

I mean, so it’s like, what a life this is great.