Quotes & Sayings About Cameraman

Gene Mean, look at our body. Cameraman, zoom! — The Iron Sheik

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

David Fincher is probably the best comprehensive director in terms of being a manger of a process that must drive forward. He has such confident command of cinema language and visual language and script and performance. He knows more about f-stops than any cameraman, he knows more about lighting than any gaffer, he is a wonderful writer, and he can give you a good line reading. Under pressure, he is the kind of guy who you will just dive in with and trust and follow because his vision is so intense. — Edward Norton

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

There's a difference between ad-libbing and improvising. And there's a difference between not knowing what to do and just saying something. Or making choices as an actor. As a writer also, as a person who's making a film, as a cameraman, everything is a choice. And it seems to me I don't really have to direct anyone or write down that somebody's getting drunk; all I have to do is say that there's a bottle there and put a bottle there and then they're going to get drunk. — John Cassavetes

I have a team, the same team of filmmakers I worked with on Pi and Requiem. Which is my cameraman, and my composer, and my producer. We've all worked together for a number of films. — Darren Aronofsky

I tried to get a job as a TV cameraman and they basically told me, 'You're mad, everyone wants these jobs - and if you go to England, you're doubly mad.' But I worked in abattoirs for 10 months to earn my money, then left for London. I didn't even know what a director did. — Martin Campbell

I grew up on the sets of Bonanza and most of my (childhood) memory is (on the set of) Little House. I was actually an assistant cameraman on Highway to Heaven. So, I observed my father working for many years. He was a very giving person. I really respected the way he ran his sets. He never treated anyone differently - whether you were the guest star of the show or the grip. Everybody was treated with respect. — Michael Landon Jr.

As a cameraman, I was paid to stand within a few feet of Yehudi Menuhin performing. I saw Rudolph Nureyev dancing. I couldn't believe I was being paid for that. — Michael Bond

What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman. — Walker Evans

My work is made on lines similar to those of a film production. A lot of my work is kind of bureaucratic, endlessly phoning up people, trying to find the cameraman and the lighting man, because I am a total technology-phobe, quite helpless with equipment. — Sam Taylor-Wood

In Hollywood, the cameraman lights the star. In Europe, he lights the set. — King Vidor

I found the recording sessions very freeing because you can really try things. When you're filming something, if you're improvising a film and you're wasting film and wasting a cameraman's time. — Tina Fey

The pictures from the first professional photo session that the young David
Beckham submitted himself to are extraordinary. He has a barely suppressed
smile, as though he and the cameraman are complicit in the understanding
that this is not yet David Beckham we see and that there is an element of
deceit in selling the photographs as such — Julie Burchill

When I move from being a cameraman to being a director I looked at a lot of other cameramen who tried to make the move. And in each case they moved up their camera operator to be the DP, which really meant they didn't want to give up being the DP, and really wanted to do both. And my feeling was if I was going to succeed as a director, I had to just be a director and give up the safety net of being a cameraman. — Barry Sonnenfeld

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

I worked on 'Blue Peter' and 'Tonight' and lots of TV plays, filmed people like Rudolf Nureyev and Ted Heath, and ended up a senior cameraman with my own crew. I'd had my first short story published in 1947, and when my writing really started to take off I decided to go freelance, and eventually left the BBC in 1965. — Michael Bond

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

A disconcerting image of the cameraman thrown in a shallow grave passed through my sights; he sat up in the dark and noticed the blanket of his bed was made of sod. — Patti Smith

I served at the Pentagon and at Fort Leavenworth - my job was video cameraman, and that allowed me to travel to places like Korea, Japan, Alaska, Germany and the Netherlands. — Chad Coleman

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

...What I have to say is very simple and very short: [Jean-Pierre Melville]'s the greatest director I've had the good fortune, pleasure and honor to work with up to this point. It'd take too long to explain. He's wonderful. He knows more about cinema than anyone. He's the greatest director I know, the greatest cameraman, the best at framing and lighting, the best at everything. He's a living encyclopedia of cinema. — Alain Delon

Of course, it may be that the arts of writing and photography are antithetical. The hope and aim of a word-handler is that he maycommunicate a thought or an impression to his reader without the reader's realizing that he has been dragged through a series of hazardous or grotesque syntactical situations. In photography the goal seems to be to prove beyond a doubt that the cameraman, in his great moment of creation, was either hanging by his heels from the rafters or was wedged under the floor with his lens in a knothole. — E.B. White

My dad was an actor and a writer; my mum was a drama teacher. My grandma was an actress. My aunt is an actress. My granddad was a cameraman. They would've been surprised if I wanted to be a dentist or something like that. — Charlie Rowe

For us as writers, it's really important to have songs we believe in - even before sometimes we shoot a scene. If we have a song that's so perfectly designed for a scene on 'Rescue Me,' we'll play it on loud speakers during the shooting. It helps the cameraman and it helps the director, and it helps the actors know what the feel is. — Denis Leary

A friend of mine - a cameraman at MTV - lost a lot of weight from cycling, and I thought I'd try it, too, thinking whenever you look at a cyclist they all look super-skinny, so hey, why not? But then it turned into such a psychologically satisfying thing. — Carson Daly

I believe that the best cameraman is one who recognizes the source, the story, as the basis of his work. — James Wong Howe

Shakespeare, adrenal glands, professional bowling, and the bizarre reproductive patterns of wasps (along with teams of BBC cameraman to document them( — N.D. Wilson

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

I think of the medium as a people-to-people medium, not cameraman-to-people, not direction-to-people, not writers-to-people, but people-to-peopleYou can only involve an audience with people. You can't involve them with gimmicks, with sunsets, with hand-held cameras, zoom shots, or anything else. They couldn't care less about those things. But you give them something to worry about, some person they can worry about, and care about, and you've got them, you've got them involved. — Frank Capra

Everyone is looking for the answer. They do not want to find the answer, trust me. Unfortunately, the answer will find them. Life - it's like one of those unpleasant nature documentaries. To be the cameraman instead of the subjects, eh? — Laird Barron

The Russo brothers are the best people ever, and they cast me in 'Happy Endings.' I did text Joe Russo to say, 'I don't think my character dies, so if you need a local news cameraman to show up in 'Captain America 2' ... I know it doesn't make sense, but just hear me out on this!' He was really cool about it and turned me down right away. — Adam Pally

Every film I've ever worked on, and that includes 'Braveheart' and 'Trainspotting,' I've always witnessed a director having a breakdown. Every director will have a day, without exception, where they just can't do it anymore, they don't know what to say to their cameraman, their cast. It's the sign of real, physical exhaustion. — Peter Mullan

In the old days, before there was such a thing as film schools, directors learned the camera by watching other directors, and learning from their own dailies, and listening to the cameraman, and seeing what would work. Some of those guys could cut their movies in their head. — Don Ameche

Starting at age 10, my personality and my identity all stemmed from employment. I had a set to be at. I was a certain way with the cameraman, a certain way with the makeup lady - a normal, routine environment. — Jason Bateman

My technicians are my most important tools. Once I establish a rapport with them, then they would understand me in my next film. I wouldn't have to train anyone new. I give a lot of respect to all my technicians, because I'm a technician too. I wouldn't be able to convey a feeling if the writer didn't write it well, and the cameraman didn't shoot it well. — Yash Chopra

I have to have a working knowledge of light, and optics, film emulsions and their properties, and lenses, otherwise I can't create the shoots that are the vocabulary of the films. But it is not necessary for me to be a cameraman, I can hire a cameraman. — Sydney Pollack

He looked at the cameraman. "Was the photographer your idea? Not getting enough TV time?" "No," replied Calvin. "I've had all of the publicity I need for this lifetime and several more. His name is Bob Jones; he goes by the nickname 'Danger.' I didn't know we were getting him until we were on Domus. There was a combat cameraman doing a show on the new members of the Terran Republic, and the Domans hired him to do a 'real Terran news show' on the war. — Chris Kennedy

Yes, if I had it my way I would do all the shots myself - I used to do that when I was just a cameraman, an operator - but there's no way; you can't do that anymore. — Dennis Muren

The cameraman isn't thinking about whether you're good that day. He's too busy worrying about what he has to do. — Meredith Salenger

When Iron Man's flying, we'd send real planes up to do the choreography so that we'd get the camerawork to really look like a cameraman was following from another plane. It gives it that 'Top Gun' look. — Jon Favreau

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

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

Things repeat themselves: people, life, death. But here God is the cameraman's boss, Thomas Alva Edison, he who has done the old biblical Lord one better: made sound that outlasts the life of the voice, light that knows no darkness, and now has made people who do not die, whose images shall remain forever on the earth in celluloid. And, from that which he has created, the light and the phonograph and the moving pictures and so much else, he has made what any true God must make here in America. Money. Piles of the stuff" (343-44). — Jonathan Lowy

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

There are times when it's absolutely appropriate to march up to someone, stick out your hand and introduce yourself, and times when it's best to let your male cameraman or producer do the talking and hang back until you've felt out the situation. — Clarissa Ward

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

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

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

In 2009, I served as AARP's Ambassador of Caregiving. With a producer and cameraman, I traveled the country for months, interviewing hundreds of caregivers. — Gail Sheehy

It took me three, four years, to get from my first film to my second film, banging on doors, trying to get people to give me a chance. Writing, struggling, with no money in the bank, working as an editor on the side. Working as a cameraman on the side. Getting little jobs, eking out a living. Trying to stay alive, and pushing a script that nobody wanted. — George Lucas