Nektonic:
For the longest time, I've thought this way - script, script, script. I still think this way. Only, recently I changed my mind - somewhat. I now think, that you should jump in, and make a short or a feature, even though your script is sub-par and your actors are lame.
Let me explain what changed my mind from a hard-core "script first" guy. I totally believe that the script is the single most important thing, and actors a close second. However, there are other considerations - borne from life experience, hard won, and paid for with blood, sweat, tears and bitterness. I paid the price. Let me give you the lesson I learned for free.
Precisely because I believe so whole-heartedly in the "script first" principle, that I have spend an inordinate amount of time re-thinking, re-conceptualizing, re-writing, throwing-out-and-starting-over-again, revising to death. My script is never good enough in my eyes. I don't 100% trust other's opinions either. Net result: I'm still working on a script - yet another one - while my buddy's career as director has taken off. His first script was quite poor. His first film was quite poor. His second film was poor. But then he hit it with the third.
Meanwhile, I avoided his "mistakes" and congratulated myself on being able to recognize a sub-standard script, and not going into production based on a flawed script. He either couldn't tell, or didn't care, and went ahead and made a poor film. I looked at the results and congratulated myself on my wisdom yet again. That happened on his next project again. Again, I was the wise one. Only now, it is he who is the wise and/or lucky one, and I'm the guy who has made the mistakes.
I got trapped. I got trapped aiming for the perfect script. I put so many restrictions on what the script must accomplish, that it repeatedly broke down under so many requirements, like a horse on whose back you keep putting more and more and more weight. Budget must be super low. Original. Great style. Charismatic. Marketable. Appealing to actors. Involving younger actors. Story and shooting style able to minimize damage from poor acting (assumed based on no money to hire great ones etc.). Blah, blah, blah blah + 23456 more conditions.
Meanwhile, my buddy took a silly script and made a ton of mistakes. Except... that allowed him to grow. That is important. If you endlessly prepare, but never just go do it, you won't grow in the right way.
There is such a thing as excess preparation. There's a great line from Andy Warhol "sometimes staying in school too long can hurt you". What he meant is that if you study too long, you can hurt yourself. I'm afraid, this has happened to me. Now, what I'm going to say, is not bragging, just stating stuff - in almost any group of filmmakers, I usually know more about various aspects of film, than the folks around me. Whether history of film, technical nuances of camera and sound work, script construction, principles of drama, lives of film directors, the business aspect of career building etc., etc., etc. And you know what the result of all this is? Paralysis through analysis on a grand, grand scale.
Look at some famous directors - yes, including Kubrick. They often made terrible first films. Yet they became great directors. Hmm. Maybe there's a lesson in there, huh?
Yes, folks, there is. Too much knowledge gives you too many choices, too many ways in which you realize how things can go wrong and how things can possibly get better. You overload. Meanwhile, someone who isn't aware of any of these thousands of rules, just does it, and if they have the right instincts, and a bit of luck, they'll grow. There's this theme that goes through so many of their careers: "I was too young and too ignorant to realize that what I wanted to do was "impossible" - so I just went ahead and did it, and guess what... it worked!".
What does all this have to do with the quotes? That two things can be true at once. Yes, it is true that it is all about "script + actors". However, it is also true at some point you should jump into the water, ready or not - because.... guess what, you are never really ready... and yet, you are also at the same time, ready... never ready as in "knowing all that is to be known", ready in the sense, "you must jump in now, waiting will only kill you dead."
Another Andy Warhol quote: "being afraid of people thinking you're a fool - that will kill you". You must not fear being thought a fool. Of course, at the same time, you cannot be a fool.
You take what you can from these hard-won lessons. Good luck!
