Quotes from Rachel Morrison

My dad, before he passed away, never understood what I did. What I say is that I'm responsible for translating the director's vision, hopefully turning an idea into something people can connect to and relate to.

It would be naive to say that you could make a movie on film for the same price you can digitally.

The only consistency in the work I do is that I try to use cinematography to best tell the narrative and do justice to the character arcs, but not to do it in such an overt way that people are distracted by it.

I lived within walking distance of Harvard Square, and that's where I discovered my love of cinema. I saw a lot of foreign and independent films there.

I think lighting is a reflection of what is at stake emotionally in a movie.

For me, I just like new challenges.

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was four. And she was re-diagnosed when I was seven or eight, and again when I was 13, and my dad was very unhealthy, too. I was living on the edge of mortality my entire childhood.

I shot 'Fruitvale Station' on super-16, and then I shot a movie called 'The Harvest' on 35mm, and then I shot 'Little Accidents' on 2-perf 35.

I think 'Sound of My Voice' was the first film where suddenly I could point to something I had done that I was proud of and say, 'Look at this piece of work.' And that's probably what led to 'Fruitvale Station,' which was the real break.

My wife jokes that any time I want to take a picture of her, it has nothing to do with her - it's just because the light is really nice. She's usually right. I definitely am somebody who notices the way the light skips off the floor.

Usually, if you notice good cinematography, then the cinematographer's failing. I try to make light feel like it's always motivated and natural in some way and hope that the lighting goes unnoticed.

Life is unpredictable, and I feel, to some extent, lighting and cinematography should be a reflection of that.

Half of 'Mudbound' were shots I stole in between other scenes.

Part of the reason why I love to operate is because I find that so much of what we do is instinctual. It's dancing with the actors and responding to their body language, and you feel what the right place for the camera is at any given moment.

When you're so used to operating the camera, it's an extension of your eye and your heart and your head.

When I was studying photography, I became interested in conflict photojournalism, and that got me interested in lighting. Then I realized there was this amazing thing called cinematography where you could kind of tell more complete stories photographing for film. So I ended up going to AFI grad school for that.

I didn't want 'Mudbound' to feel stylized in any way.

I think you can make a gorgeous movie on any piece of equipment. Look at 'Tangerine,' which is a beautiful movie shot on an iPhone. You see so many movies that are impeccably shot but are vapid, and there's no audience for that except for other cinematographers who just like to watch two-hour-long music videos.

I think there's this assumption that everybody would rather be a director, and I don't know that that's the case for me, so we'll see.

The best kind of entertainment is the kind that also makes you question something or think outside the box or live another life. Those are the stories that I'm drawn to.

The cinematographer's basically translating the director's vision into imagery.

I believe in naturalistic lighting, which isn't to say natural light.