Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
In fact, I probably learned more about photography from studying black-and-white photography in those magazines [Look Magazine and LIFE Magazine] than I did from watching movies here. That's the truth.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
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
Image
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
Image
As the cinematographer is usually more visual than the director is and full cooperation is really the answer and to make a great film, you need a good director and you need a good cinematographer.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
I love to make movies about young people - young scientists that are inventing things and all the writing they did was very funny and very true.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
A good [film] director is talented, imaginative, and does his homework.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
I like the film camera better because the film is still one hundred times better than any digital image at the moment. So, there are certain movies that you can't really do digitally.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
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
Image
These days that wouldn't happen - waiting for the light to be exactly right. Because it takes time and time is money. And with these big productions with expensive actors, you just don't have the time to get every shot exactly right.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
I'm always looking for directors who are very strong, they have great ideas, but on the other hand, that need help. It means they rely mostly on my eyes.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
There are many, many different kinds of movies and directors and styles. I don't mind that a movie looks like a movie.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
There is something more to reality than just the tangible. There is also mood, and you cannot skip that.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
I think film is about images. Cinema needs good images. I think that if you don’t have good images, it’s not going to be a good film. I think all films should be really visual.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
When I was in Hungary in December I was looking at student films and I could not tell which ones were shot on film and which ones were shot digitally. I think that is because the filmmakers in Europe go to four years of film school and learn the techniques.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
I don't like to be in front of the camera - my place is behind the camera.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
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
Image
If you use hand-held techniques just to make the film stylish I think it's wrong.
Vilmos Zsigmond