Movies are a craft, theyre not art. I saw one [a movie] the other night, The Out of Towners. Its part of my whole person.

Jamie Lee Curtis, If you take 2001: A Space Odyssey as an example of somebody who creates a new language in film by what he was able to accomplish with art direction, photography, lighting, etc., it is still a gold standard for science fiction. You can create certain selectivity within the composition with the lighting or as an element of the composition.

That is my method. We wanted the camera to tell the story and yet somehow be part of the story almost as if the audience was making the same journey as the characters. By not explaining everything with light, darkness gives my imagination an opening. With all the complexity of [that shoot] England, Greece, North Africa and Spain its amazing how smoothly Patton went. The big question is whether you have the guts and heart to trust your intuition. It would be wrong to take a painter and ask him to paint in a certain style from the past. Its the same shit.

At the same time it can become monotonous if you dont occasionally temper that consistency. Its a dialogue. Lighting is so complex that its hard to quantify. Once I start to realize how they want to see it, I speak with them broadly, in non-technical terms about various aesthetic choices light and dark, color and no color, whether the camera should be moving or not. The book is well worth purchasing for the Alekan interview alone. I cant think of a picture where I tried to light it exactly the same all the way through to keep the same mood, because I just didnt feel it would work that way.

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As for continuing to work with some directors, sometimes I had to say no because I was already engaged on another project.

The three or four weeks I need in preparation for a picture mainly consists of just talking to the director so I can understand what he wants. Contrast is what makes photography interesting.

Joseph Fiennes, You know, whenever you're shooting a film there's different obstacles and challenges, whether it be from the makeup artist getting fired that you liked or whatever - the one that did the makeup the way you wanted. A single source light: the moon, the sun, a candle.

Until then, color cinema does not really exist.

I want the audience to just become immersed in the movie and feel the anxiety that the character goes through while his life implodes. Then I also used smoke for the night exteriors, which again gave it a more mysterious look and softened the lights so that they werent so contrasty. As far as were aware, this is the biggest list of cinematography quotes available on the internet.

But I think the films we make are jazz. When the scene stops, you stop. Columbus Short, In opera, everyone's watching from a fixed viewpoint, and that really challenges you. Everyday when I worked onto a new film set, I went on with a completely open mind, and I treated every story in its own right. Art directors would get very cross with me. Literature and music are basic sources. I go back and forth about how I light scenes and what sort of units I use. You create your own sources. I think the cinematographers work is part of the whole. The idea would be that the audience goes to the theatre and they dont even notice how its shot. Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

I like images to look natural as though somebody sitting in a room by a lamp is being lit by that lamp. We make the film we can.

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I go to a location and see where the light falls normally and I just try and catch it as it is to reinforce it if it is insufficient; thats on a natural set. I have the assistant keep a shot-to-shot log book which gives the f-stop, the filtration, whether there were any nets, the focial length of the lens etc. The principles of lighting remain the same: the small room has one source of light, a big window. Its hopefully more than just the mood of what appears in the theatre, but it becomes a dialectic.

When youre in a restricting location, you often end up bouncing light because you dont have the space to project it through frames of diffusion.

How do they look together? It has to be a story I want to do; a director whose work I like or who I would like to work with for the first time; and the visual potential of the picture. I dare to compare myself to painters, but I just have a bigger canvas to adapt to. At the same time, when you find yourself on set, you have to do what you feel, because thats the only thing you know how to do. The cinematographer is a storyteller, and his main job is to communicate with the director and get his ideas on the screen. During the actual production, I started out with a relatively simple form of overhead lighting, using a batten containing some nook lights that were bounced into these hanging skirts of bleached muslin. Marie Windsor, I love my cameras. Theres always the intention to create visually stunning images, but ultimately, my greatest concern is to stay true to the drama of the scene? Its not. Roger Deakins on Sicario, September 2015. If youre looking for advice, tips, and tricks from the greatest cinematographers then youve come to the right place. Also you may have shot and wrapped the picture and then three months later the director decides he wants to pick up some extra shots or an additional sequence.

If I do backlight, I want to see that backlight. Manipulating shadows and tonality is like writing music or a poem. The nature of the story determines the photographic style.

As soon as you go into film, as soon as there's a camera, and there's an angle, and there's lighting, and there's editing, you're into the adaptation.

Filmmaking consists of all the arts combined.

They give us this place to have an investment. I believe that the best cameraman is one who recognizes the source, the story, as the basis of his work. Why not? For Citizen Kane, direct cuts would be avoided as often as possible. They had the idea that the audience should be able to see everything. It comes from painting. Over the last few years, several people have asked me what advice I would give a young cinematographer.

Were trying to create the illusion that time is advancing: its early morning, late afternoon, midnight.

I always said that you could photograph a good story badly and it wouldnt matter, but you can shoot a bad story well and its not going to help the story at all. I really feel ill when I see a direct light coming into faces with its big nose shadow. To give a more realistic feel on stages, I usually tend to work a bit sloppier. Whenever possible, shoot the films that you care about, because those are the ones where youll do the best work. I dont believe in film school or film theory. First of all, the composition has to tell the story and create the mood. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us., In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present., I'd like to find a new light. I like simplicity. The right photography is what tells the story best.. It could be wonderful. It was terrible and I can hardly stand to see my own films on television anymore. It cannot be an arbitrary choice. Jean Reno, The war for our Union, with all the constitutional issues which it settled, and all the military lessons which it gathered in, has throughout its dilatory length but one meaning in the eyes of history.

Nothings perfect and its in the imperfection there is possibility. I told myself that the sensitivity of people is such that they will perceive each nuance that I wanted to add with the weight of lights and shadows. I say, Preparation. It starts with reading the script, knowing the script inside out. Directors can allow cinematographers to advance to another level, because we all have that capability in us. You are constantly problem solving from the time you arrive on the set until you quit shooting in the evenings.

Whats great about cinematography is that you work from your instincts and people later see your work and come up with [an analysis] that you didnt even realize, but which may make perfect sense. This infuses the story with some kind of meaning. American Directors shoot too much I think.

Doing good work in day exterior situations means that you must be able to make great images all day long, even when the light isnt ideal for pretty pictures. Earlier, I made a lot of what I thought were beautiful shots with much backlighting and many effects, absolutely none of which were motivated by anything in the film at all.

I do use gag lights, but I like the sources themselves to be very bright within the scene. A lot of times you cant complete a sequence on a given day. Theres no confusion that way. Which quotes are your favorite? My best film is always my next film. I take montage more into account. I just always insist on having a wonderful operator and wonderful gaffer. I think its exciting, actually, to see what illumination is provided by daylight and then try to create the effect. Other cameramen illuminated for exposure.

The only thing you can do in cases like these is to take your ego, put it in your pocket, and cover it with a handkerchief.

Composition is really important in creating the mood: it also helps to sort out what you want the eye to see and in what order.

It gives you more modeling, it gives you a better look. Its very hard to go back to artificial light in the same movie.

It would be wrong to ask a Cinematographer to photograph a film in the same style as another picture because you can never do that. You gotta make mistakes and you have to appropriate the mistakes, and then you learn from those things. All my pictures looked different.

Then suddenly, theres something magical that grabs them. I think the wide lenses allow you to make the movie very immersive and that was one of our main ideas: to engage the audience in a very immersive way. You may never see the window in the entire scene. I would say I spend most of my time getting into the head of the director you know, having discussions, seeing locations, find out about the style of the film. You forget that youve seen any photography. I want the audience to just become immersed in the movie and feel the anxiety that the character goes through while his life implodes.

The lenses use for Citizen Kane were in no way as good as a Primo or a Master Prime and the grain structure in that film is, frankly, all over the place.