Quotes About Cinematography

I'm really fond of P. C. Sreeram, and we got along quite well on the sets of 'Ishq.'

I loved, in 'Starman', the use of anamorphic lenses, the creation of blue light, and Carpenter's use of the widescreen format.

It's very hard to put forth a film that's about love and the joy of love and for it not to be patronising and not make people nauseous or make them roll their eyes.

I like the camera to be still and not very shaky and have everything happen within the frame.

When I go on set, it's very important, the lenses I choose, what I choose to frame or not frame and that's how I make my movies.

When I got on my first set, I watched what the cinematographer was doing, and at that level in film school, the cinematographer has the most control. They're the one looking through the viewfinder, carrying the camera, framing the shots.

I've always been fascinated with everything behind the camera and in front.

When I made 'Eight Below,' they wanted me to shoot digital, and I didn't want to do it because that's just what I need, to get a great series of takes and then find out the camera was frozen.

Fundamentally, I always find that most of the films that I've put out are essentially the director's cut. Part of the process with a director's cut is the leaving behind of certain aspects of the movie that we don't feel necessary because they aren't part of the dynamic of the story.

I was influenced by people like David Fincher and William Friedkin, and these directors who kinda paint their films with these dark shades.

I don't come from a film background. I haven't learned anything about films or film-making. But I have a thirst to know everything about my profession. I want to learn about cinematography, about editing, about music recordings, about post-production. So when people in the know talk, I willingly listen.

Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.

Filmmaking, whatever the window dressing or the scale of a film may be, is eventually about telling a story.

The skyline in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rope' is made up: no, you don't get the Waldorf and the Chrysler and the Empire State buildings and a dozen other magnificent structures in one window.

My personal feeling is that ultra-high frame rates and ultra-vivid giant screen movies can be like a window onto reality. And if you recognize it as such, you can write your screenplay, direct your movie, edit it, and present it as a live experience - not like a movie.

It's a very tricky job we have as DPs, where you are expected to make something that really is an emotional art but also needs to be technically spot on. You're often given a very small window of time to achieve it. People sometimes expect it to be even quicker and forget that there's a schedule for a reason.

I have developed my eye as a cinematographer through the craft of operating. When I am not operating, I am often anxious, uncertain, restless, sometimes irritable. When I am in the position of working with Steadicam or remote cameras, I fly with a broken wing.

I guess you can't really turn a camera on outside in Texas without getting Terrence Malick comparisons.

There's an ecstasy about doing something really good on film: the composition of a shot, the drama within the shot, the texture... It's palpable.

I believe if you come out of a movie and the first thing you say is, 'The cinematography was beautiful,' it's a bad movie.

With a lot of these social realist films, the first thing you do is drain the color.

If it's stage, the two most important artists are the actor and the playwright. If it's film, THE most important person is the director. The director says where the camera goes.

The problem with filming something is that we struggle desperately to make three dimensions out of two dimensions. It can't be done.

Personally, I don't like to talk too much to the actors about the camera choices because I feel like the way I want them to perform is as if it feels very rooted in the real world and that I'm essentially stepping back and just watching and hoping they feel safe with me watching.