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In a period piece, particularly a fantasy, the lighting is your own choice, the lenses are your own choice. It's really a great thing for a cinematographer to do. Everything is open for you. You can even be more creative and you can use more shadows than usual.

Vilmos Zsigmond

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Vilmos Zsigmond
Age: 85 †
Born: 1930
Born: June 16
Died: 2016
Died: January 1
Cinematographer
Film Producer
Segedo
Everything
Periods
Lenses
Great
Shadow
Lighting
Even
Choice
Shadows
Thing
Pieces
Usual
Really
Open
Particularly
Choices
Period
Creative
Fantasy
Use
Piece
Cinematographer

More quotes by Vilmos Zsigmond

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It's all about special effects and explosions now. It leaves me just cold when I walk out of the theater. There's no heart there's no soul. Movies used to be about people. It's as though we don't tell stories any more. The studios have to make money, and if you want to make $20 million, you have to spend $200 million.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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Sometimes the shots serve as homages to other movies and other directors, like Hitchcock.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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I love the Dutch impressionists - Vermeer, Rembrandt. What they were able to do with light was astonishing. As for photographers, I think mostly of the Hungarians: Robert Capa, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Jozsef Pesci. In fact, I have one of his photographs hanging in my house.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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I look at a picture like Scarecrow and think, 'Jesus, how could they have let us make that?' I mean, if you used technology that old nowadays, it would look like old Hollywood.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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I think that the audience should not be able to tell if it is real or not real - it should be an enhanced version of reality, or an artistic view of reality, that captures not only what is physically there, but what is not visible - the mood.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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I'm always looking in the lighting to tell the story in a different way than it actually looks in real life because it's, for me, more contrast sometimes has to mean it's softer than normal.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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If you use hand-held techniques just to make the film stylish I think it's wrong.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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Jack [Nicholson] really knows about the camera. He's one of the directors who likes to play with the camera. He'll change things around, play with lighting, things like that. He'll even spend hours on the set-up for an insert shot. He's an interested person who gets involved in all the aspects of the films he is making.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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I don't know the American photographers as well, but I admit I love Ansel Adams. His landscapes are so crisp.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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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
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Hayden [Sterling] told me that he was thrilled about the way he moved around the set, that wherever he would go, there would be lighting. He didn't think about his marks because they were set in the only places he could move.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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You can't just stick with what you know, you have to evolve.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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You always like to be the collaborator. I don't want to take over the movie, because if I want to do that, I should really become a director because then you have the control of everything, basically. I'm very happy to just be the visual part of it, doing the visual part of the movie.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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When I do a still picture, I'm doing it all by myself with no help. I'm designing everything. I am my own art director. I'm doing everything. I'm directing, editing, whatever.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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Telling the story with only a few shots, I love that style. It makes you feel like you're part of the action, part of the story. It reminds me of the theater, where one act is basically like one long shot. It almost makes you forget that you're seeing a movie.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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What I would suggest to the young people is to not forget this and don't try to get assimilated into today's Hollywood style of movies because I don't think it's going to last long.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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I don't like to be in front of the camera - my place is behind the camera.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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Mexican cinematographers Gabriel Figueroa and Emilio Fernandez were students of both Sergei Eisenstein and Toland. Their exteriors and lighting were gorgeous. And the films Ingmar Bergman did with Sven Nykvist were exceptional.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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I think too many film students in America are losing the artistry and not learning lighting the right way.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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When we came to America, the movies here needed a new wave. European films looked totally different than American movies, which were these lush, glossy pictures with this elaborate production design.
Vilmos Zsigmond