Are directors ever 100% satisfied with their films?

The flipside of this idea is what can happen when you put away something you finished (aka abandoned) for a long time - years often - and then look at it fresh. It can often seem *so* much better then. You find yourself wondering what all the fuss was 'back when' when you just couldn't get satisfied with it.

Seen it happen many times in many different ways...

It doesn't negate the larger point though - that never being fully satisfied is (usually) a good thing. Sometimes it just pays off better over time : )
 
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Jip, time changes everything! That's why I like editing something and giving it a bit of time before I finalize it - the time tends to clear your mind. On the other hand you could look back on your very early work and puke.
 
A great Clint Eastwood story I got from his editor: For the DVD release, Warner Brothers asked him to deliver the "director's cut". Clint responded by, "I already gave you the director's cut", it was the one that was in the theaters. Why would I give you anything else?"

Michael
 
Basic artist dilemma. Striving for perfection and realizing that at some point you have to call it "good enough." I know artists, and would-be ones, that could never call it good enough and would never release anything. Basic insecurity, imo. I also know artists that will release just about anything just to move on to the next project.

I'm also a musician and the cool thing there is the recording has to be called good enough very quickly, except now there's pitch and time correction software so a lot of stuff can be done in post which I hate btw, but the performance can be altered to suit the mood or my sobriety.
 
As a Director, if you are 100% satisfied with a project you are just lying to yourself. Nothing is perfect, you just make the best result with the material you have ... and hope people don't think it sucks. ha!
 
Yep, at some point you have to "put the brush down" and stop fiddling with it. There will always be things that drive you insane.

"I can't even stand to watch this piece of garbage because of that double shadow in the kitchen scene! How did we not catch that on set!"

Then after maybe a year you will watch it again for some reason and think "wow, this is actually pretty good". At least that's my experience.

I set totally arbitrary deadlines. For example, we are wrapping shooting June 26th I want post production done by August 26th, then I stick to it. The movie we have on August 26th is the movie we have and I move on to the next one.
 
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