Education Quote by Richard King

The bravado here is inverted: Richard King isn’t promising mastery, he’s promising a controlled failure. In a business that sells the myth of the infallible auteur, “I plan to screw something up” reads like a small act of rebellion against perfectionism-as-branding. The key word is “plan.” Mistakes aren’t framed as accidents to be hidden in the edit bay; they’re treated as an operating principle, almost a deliberate budget line item in the creative process.

The subtext is a director trying to stay porous in an industry that rewards certainty. Film sets are built to minimize risk: schedules are unforgiving, money burns by the minute, and reputations harden quickly. Admitting error can sound like weakness. King turns that vulnerability into a professional ethic: if you’re not occasionally wrong, you’re probably playing it safe, repeating a visual language you already know will work. The “every movie” part matters too; it’s not a one-time humility performance, it’s a commitment to iteration.

There’s also a quiet leadership cue embedded in the phrasing. Directors set the emotional weather on set. Normalizing screw-ups can give departments permission to experiment, to flag problems early, to treat feedback as craft rather than threat. Of course, it’s a dangerous sentiment if taken literally - film isn’t a sandbox. But as intent, it’s sharp: progress comes less from protecting the ego than from designing a process where the ego can afford to lose.