Cameraman Quotes

• People think that all cameramen do is point the camera at things, but it's a heck of a lot more complicated than that.

  Chris Elliott

  Thinking, People, Cameras

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• People always seem to assume that we have a full, back-up support team - make-up, costume and a driver - but usually, in a war zone, there's only me and the cameraman.

  Kate Adie

  War, Team, People

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• Often I pretended to a cameraman to know less than I did. That way I got more cooperation.

  Ida Lupino

  Way, Cooperation, Knows

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• The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words.

  Elliott Erwitt

  Inspirational, Photography, Cameras

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• There is the danger of over preparation, of loss of spontaneity; over rehearsal is the most terrible thing you can imagine. We do have a very close association between costume and set designer, though. And the cameraman is very important, of course.

  Terence Fisher

  Loss, Preparation, Important

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• My cameraman and I devised a method, which we started using from my second film, which applies mainly to day scenes shot in the studio, where we used bounced light instead of direct light. We agreed with this thing of four or five shadows following the actors is dreadful.

  Satyajit Ray

  Light, Shadow, Actors

  Satyajit Ray, Bert Cardullo (2007). “Satyajit Ray: Interviews”, p.105, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I couldn't be a cameraman or a designer or an actor - I have to be a director because I learned how to do that from my dad.

  Joe Wright

  Dad, Directors, Actors

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The pictures are there, and you just take them.

  Robert Capa

  Photography, Art, Photojournalism

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• Since a camera is something too heavy for women and initially made for men, you need a good cameraman.

  Mitra Farahani

  Men, Cameras, Needs

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• Cameramen are among the most extraordinarily able and competent people I know. They have to have an insight into natural history that gives them a sixth sense of what the creature is going to do, so they can be ready to follow.

  David Attenborough

  People, Giving, Able

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• Whether you're a cameraman or a director, you should ask yourself every now and then, 'What am I trying to do?' Be honest and keep things very simple.

  James Wong Howe

  Simple, Trying, Directors

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• Light. Light I think is knowledge. Knowledge is love. Love is freedom. Freedom is energy. Energy is all. Without light, we can't have images.

  Vittorio Storaro

  Love Is, Thinking, Light

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• Gene Mean, look at our body. Cameraman, zoom!

  The Iron Sheik

  Mean, Wrestling, Zoom

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• You have a 45mm automatic pistol on your lap, and I have a 35mm camera on my lap, and my weapon is just as powerful as yours. (To Black Panther militant Eldridge Cleaver)

  Gordon Parks

  Photography, Powerful, Gun

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• A film just doesn't involve actors, a director and a producer, there is also the cameraman, the sound engineer, the music composer, the lyric writer. So many people come together to make a film. When we all feel satisfied with the film that we have created it's a win for all of us.

  Aamir Khan

  Winning, People, Together

  Source: www.danielpillai.com

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• There are a lot of cameramen but not so many photographers. And a lot of cameramen attack from a technical approach without much imagination. They look, but they don't see.

  Gordon Willis

  Photography, Imagination, Vision

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• I don't think I can break down any doors, but I'm thinking, "Maybe I can be a cameraman, because I love the cameras." And the cameraman would show me how to thread the film, how to repair it, the lenses. That's when you become, like, goony goo-goo about it. You breathe and eat camera, and all of a sudden, you don't want anything else in the world. You finally know, "This is my calling." When you're passionate about something, it doesn't become work. It's art and it's fun. It's arduous, it's sweaty.

  Pam Grier

  Art, Fun, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Justice precedes beauty. Without justice, beauty is impossible, an obscenity. And when beauty has gone, what does a cameraman do with his eye?

  Tony Kushner

  Eye, Justice, Doe

  Tony Kushner (1994). “A Bright Room Called Day”, p.128, Theatre Communications Group

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• Jack Cardiff - the greatest cameraman who ever worked in colour - was a lab boy to start with so he knew Technicolor from the inside out.

  Thelma Schoonmaker

  Boys, Labs, Colour

  Source: www.fluxmagazine.com

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• Light can be gentle, dangerous, dreamlike, bare, living, dead, misty, clear, hot, dark, violet, springlike, falling, straight, sensual, limited, poisonous, calm and soft.

  Sven Nykvist

  Fall, Dark, Light

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• Anyone with a smart phone is a potential eyewitness cameraman capturing and transmitting stories at speeds that turn Reuter photos and traditional reporting into, well... yesterday’s news.

  Harvey Fierstein

  Smart, Yesterday, Phones

  "Reimagining the Story of Newsies" by Harvey Fierstein, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 29, 2012.

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• I like to say that lighting is about taking the light away. I often like to use the shadows more than the light.

  Vilmos Zsigmond

  Dark, Light, Shadow

  "Interview: Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond". Interview with Laurence Lerman, www.discdish.com. January 11, 2016.

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• I grew up as a cameraman, so it's much easier for me to shoot it myself. I work with an operator and a crew, but it's way easier for me to function as a cinematographer, than to have a cinematographer between me and the lens. I don't need that.

  David Douglas

  Lenses, Needs, Way

  Source: collider.com

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• Directing ain't about drawing a neat little picture and showing it to the cameraman. I didn't want to go to film school. I didn't know what the point was. The fact is, you don't know what directing is until the sun is setting and you've got to get five shots and you're only going to get two.

  David Fincher

  Movie, Education, School

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• There are things that happen so quickly. A better cameraman can capture them, but if the light is not bright and you hoist up your camera by the time you've dialed in your settings. There are eye blink moments where you're like "Aaahhhh, I wish," but those are too many to catalogue. Nothing really sticks out.

  Henry Rollins

  Eye, Light, Wish

  Interview with Danny Stygion, www.sinicalmagazine.com. October 1, 2011.

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