Quotes About Cinematography

The wonderful thing about 48 fps is the integration of live action and CG elements; that is something I learned from 'The Hobbit.' We are so used to 24 fps and the romance of celluloid... but at 48 fps, you cannot deny the existence of these CG creations in the same time frame and space and environment as the live action.

In terms of directing, there's a number of directors who definitely had a great impact on me, Woody Allen certainly being one of them.

Woody Allen likes to do a lot of master shots. He likes to get the whole thing in one take, and so you could be going along doing a scene, and then the next to last line, all of a sudden, you stumble, and you have to go back to first base.

As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.

Whenever I arrive on a real location, I have to move around and work out what the best angles are going to be. When I was moving around with the lens, I discovered things that the naked eye would not have.

In old movies, the cinematography is a thousand times better than anything today. Writing, a thousand times better.

Nowadays you don't get to see composition in a movie because nobody ever keeps the camera still long enough to see it. Actors don't have the thrill and the power of working with space.

I can still recall the thrill of shooting my first film.

In a thriller, the camera's an active narrator, or can be.

I wouldn't apply high frame rates to a love story or a thriller or a film noir or a mystery.

Thrillers are an enormous amount of fun for filmmakers.

I worked on movies with a lot of violence when I was a cinematographer, and it always bothered me. It's a personal thing. I wouldn't want my kids to see it. I certainly believe that freedom of expression shouldn't be taken away, but I also believe you can make movies that are thrilling and exciting without too much violence.

There are films you see that only reach your eyes. Then there are films that you can watch... that reach down to your throat, or reach your heart. 'In the Mood for Love,' though, reached all the way to my belly.

Cinematography is so much about instinct and intuition - you want the same range of experience going into behind the camera as what you see in front of it. Your life experience will come through the lens.

Throughout my pictures I employ a lighting which is not naturalistic.

Sometimes we misunderstand what films can do. We just throw a whole book in there, with people just talking, talking, and talking. The picture can tell, the frame can tell.

The perceived wisdom is that people do not go in large numbers to black-and-white movies anymore - which is a great shame, but I'd love to make a black-and-white movie one day.

I like finding a great shot and then just staying with it for a long time, not trying to pump things up with some kind of artificial energy by cutting.

It was great to work in Ireland because it's such a beautiful country, but it's not particularly easy to film in because the weather changes all the time.

In the editing room, 20 percent of the time you're using stuff from before the actor knew the camera was rolling or you're taking a line from somewhere else and putting it in his mouth.

Making films is no longer a way of acting, it is a way of life.

I was in film school as an undergrad with a focus on directing. Once I started working on shoots, I realized, 'Oh, I really like this cinematography thing.'

When you work as a cinematographer, the actors look to you for reassurance. When you're lighting them, they can never think you're making an adjustment because of the way they look. If they are nervous, it impacts their performance, which impacts the story.

For horror movies, color is reassuring because, at least in older films, it adds to the fakey-ness.