In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.

At HBO, they seem to be well-informed. They make what I think are really quite mature films.

With Cold Sassy Tree having its first production, I saw no necessity to do anything other than produce it with the correct setting.

Tender Mercies is a very low-budget film, but it was a huge budget compared to anything I had done in Australia. My fee for Tender Mercies was something like five times all of my Australian films combined.

The music of the most popular operas is so highly esteemed, it can stand endless revivals.

When I was 24 I went to Nigeria and it was such a culture shock, growing up in Australia and suddenly being the only white man in this unit full of black men.

Everyone has seen photographs of Mexicans wearing those big sombreros. When you come to Mexico, the astonishing thing is, nobody wears these hats at all.

There's a bright spot in every dark cloud.

I'd really been interested in opera when I was about 16, and I really like staging them.

When the music and the characters are flawlessly synchronized, the opera develops an emotional force that movies and plays cannot match.

I didn't get upset because I wasn't nominated, but I was a little surprised.

In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.

He's wrong. That's why his films look so terrible.

For a director, the most challenging scenes are the dialogue scenes.

The number of opera houses around the world and the high attendance rates show that opera an art form that is more popular than ever.

Quite a few operas are still being commissioned around the world, although nothing apart from audience popularity can ensure more than a few performances.

It is essential to do everything possible to attract young people to opera so they can see that it is not some antiquated art form but a repository of the most glorious music and drama that man has created.

In my view, the operas of Carlisle Floyd will find a place in the permanent repertoire.

Directing an opera is similar to directing a play. The singing must not get in the way of the drama.

In silent movies, they tended to put the camera down, and everybody walked in front of it and acted, and then they all walked off. Cutting was quite infrequent.

On stage, the audience watches from a fixed viewpoint and the director cannot retake something he doesn't like. It has to work straight through.

When we were trying to get the money for Driving Miss Daisy, everyone kept saying no one could direct it well enough to entertain an audience for 100 minutes essentially watching three people chatting in the kitchen.

It's not enough to hit the notes. There is no point in the singers just standing there and sounding wonderful if they're not connecting with the characters they are portraying.

Film is shot in fragments, and the same moments can be shot again and again until the director is satisfied.

Perhaps the most difficult thing is shooting scenes set 6,000 feet up in the mountains of Mexico.

I don't rehearse films as much as opera or theatre. When I began directing films I thought a long rehearsal was a good idea. Experience showed me that the best performance was often left in a rehearsal room.

With a film, I do my best to understand the author's intentions and try to bring the characters to life.

There were movies that always made me want to be a director. You see brilliant scenes and the way the emotions were handled. I thought, I'd really like to do that.

In opera, everyone's watching from a fixed viewpoint, and that really challenges you. Lighting, the sets, stage groupings, the music-but doesn't relate too much to film.

Our strength in finance has led us to set up an international financial centre with medium and long-term objectives, especially to develop Islamic financial and insurance services.

We came from a family where we ran our own small business. Our dad made his own products. We made our own sausages, our own meatloafs, our own pickles. Dad had to do everything himself. He had to figure out how to finance his business.

My expertise was in public finance, particularly corporate taxation, since I had worked at the US Treasury.

I've been writing a lot, I've a few projects I'm trying to finance, I do some acting, I do some directing... Apart from that, if I could get lower that a ten handicap on my golf game I'd be thrilled.

If it isn't the sheriff, it's the finance company; I've got more attachments on me than a vacuum cleaner.

Let's not overlook, though, what we do know about the campaign finance scandal, and the fact the Chinese were involved in our presidential campaign and our congressional campaigns.

People just want to hear some common sense... and I bring to bear the experience in local government and state government and national government - I was the first woman in history on the Senate Finance Committee - not to mention the diplomatic international experience.

But now, more and more, its society is concerned with economy and finance.

I wanted to make Jerusalem as feature film. But we couldn't finance it only through theatrical release, we couldn't get all the money we needed. We had to get some money from television. So we said, ok, let's do it both ways. So we did it in four parts.

Look, Congress has allocated more money to finance the upcoming Iraqi elections than it has for the American elections. There's something wrong with that.

Masood Ahmed brings to the position of director of external relations extensive experience gained in a range of senior positions in international finance and development.

I turn up in Los Angeles every now and then, so I can get some big money films in order to finance my smaller money films.

The war we are fighting today against terrorism is a multifaceted fight. We have to use every tool in our toolkit to wage this war - diplomacy, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and of course, military power - and we are developing new tools as we go along.

These heroes of finance are like beads on a string; when one slips off, all the rest follow.

Three years after starting, by physically doing everything from raising the finance to special effects, we'd finally cobbled together our low budget film.

In 1973, women got 59 cents on the dollar; now we are getting 74 cents on the dollar. In the area of finance and business, we are at 68 cents on the dollar.

In almost every profession - whether it's law or journalism, finance or medicine or academia or running a small business - people rely on confidential communications to do their jobs. We count on the space of trust that confidentiality provides. When someone breaches that trust, we are all worse off for it.

It is a sound principle of finance, and a still sounder principle of government, that those who have the duty of expending the revenue of a country should also be saddled with the responsibility of levying and providing it.

The art and culture that is New York, communications, finance, all these things help make up New York. The rest of the country should be happy that we are what we are.

I don't plan on going back to legal work. I wanted an international career, and finance seemed to be where some interesting career opportunities were.