Roger Deakins Quotes & Sayings

When you move the camera, or you do a shot like the crane down (in Shawshank) with them standing on the edge of the roof, then it's got to mean something. You've got to know why you're doing it; it's got to be for a reason within the story, and to further the story. — Roger Deakins

If reviewers don't mention your work, it's probably better than if they do — Roger Deakins

I'd done a big movie that I wasn't happy with, and I was moving out of London when I got approached about Barton Fink, because my agent said the brothers were in London. We hit it off immediately, and suddenly I found myself on the way to America! — Roger Deakins

I do miss the idea of the crew getting together to watch dailies after work. I will usually get selected dailies printed on film especially for the early part of a shoot as HD dailies really don't tell me much photographically. — Roger Deakins

I've always been a fan of Westerns, but my favorite kind of Westerns mostly were Sam Peckinpah's Westerns, and they mainly took place in the West that was changing. — Roger Deakins

To me if there's an achievement to lighting and photography in a film it's because nothing stands out, it all works as a piece. And you feel that these actors are in this situation and the audience is not thrown by a pretty picture or by bad lighting. — Roger Deakins

I never really considered film as a career, but I knew I didn't want to be a builder. So I went to art college, and it just gradually happened. — Roger Deakins

I feel every shot, every camera move, every frame, and the way you frame something and the choice of lens, I see all those things are really important on every shot. — Roger Deakins

I don't approach films purely in context of genre. — Roger Deakins

I think technology has advanced so far now that there are some cameras on the market that give film a run for its money. It's all about flexibility in capturing images, and digital or film, it doesn't matter to me. — Roger Deakins

When I first started, I saw myself shooting documentaries or making documentaries, which is what I did, mostly, for a number of years. So it was quite a surprise how I found myself shooting features. It was like my wildest dreams as a kid collided. — Roger Deakins

I think of filmmaking as a form of communication. Maybe it's also an art, but that's for somebody else to decide. — Roger Deakins

Partly why I love to operate is that I love to watch an actor within a shot. When you watch a shot, and you know that everything's come together, I feel I'm the first person watching it. I always get pleasure out of that. — Roger Deakins

If you shoot with a billion cameras, then there's no perspective. You want to use one shot at a time, so it's better to discover what that is before you shoot, rather than trying to make something in the cutting room, and then it just becomes generic. — Roger Deakins

I am concerned that the subtlety is being lost and every film tends to look very contrasty and saturated. — Roger Deakins

I thought that was a pretty stupid argument, really, because it's the final product that matters. The look of the film, however it's done, is still the cinematographer's vision in my mind. People said the same when color film came in, didn't they? The world evolves, and image-making evolves. — Roger Deakins

Someone said to me, early on in film school if you can photograph the human face you can photograph anything, because that is the most difficult and most interesting thing to photograph. — Roger Deakins

There are some sequences in films that I think work filmicly, that stand out to me, but that's much more to do with the staging and the cutting and the mood of the thing as a sequence, the way everything comes together. — Roger Deakins

All I've ever wanted to do is take stills of people, or take documentaries about people, and try to express to an audience how somebody lives next door. You know what I mean? Just how similar we all are as individuals. — Roger Deakins

Am I nostalgic for film? ... I mean, it's had a good run, hasn't it? You know, I'm not nostalgic for a technology. I'm nostalgic for the kind of films that used to be made that aren't being made now. — Roger Deakins

I don't really believe in the mystery of cinematography - what happens in the camera is what the cinematographers create and all that nonsense. — Roger Deakins

Every shot I have ever made has been a compromise in some way. No image has ever been as good as the one I envisioned in my mind's eye. — Roger Deakins

The balance of the frame - the way an actor is relating to the space in the frame - is the most important factor in helping the audience feel what the character is thinking. — Roger Deakins

I loved movies ever since I was a kid. — Roger Deakins

I am not a fan of having too much gear. — Roger Deakins

I want a script to affect me in some way. I am usually drawn to character studies, scripts about real people and the world we live in not some fantasy. — Roger Deakins

There's nothing worse than an ostentatious shot. Or some lighting that draws attention to itself, and you might go, 'Oh, wow, that's spectacular.' Or that spectacular shot, a big crane move, or something. — Roger Deakins

Maybe that sounds a bit pretentious, but I think life experience is always more important than technical knowledge. — Roger Deakins

Your whole life informs your eye. — Roger Deakins

I came up, I suppose, a fairly traditional way. I went to art college. I always wanted to be a stills photographer, really, when I was younger, and I briefly worked as a stills photographer. — Roger Deakins

I like simplicity. I like using natural sources. I like images to look natural - as though somebody sitting in a room by a lamp is being lit by that lamp. — Roger Deakins

If I am creating the shots from scratch I may have to spend more time holding the directors hand and therefore have less time to finesse the shot or the lighting etc. but it really all depends on the project. Some films benefit from their spontaneity. — Roger Deakins

Some of the smallest things on a smaller film, to me, are greater achievements than on a big film when you have the resources and the time and everything else. — Roger Deakins

Every scene is a challenge. There are technical challenges, but often it's the simplest challenge where you feel a sense of achievement when you pull it off. — Roger Deakins