Quote

Each story has a different approach for me and I try to work with lighting that will tell you visually the story better than if it was shot in available light.

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
Story
Tell
Stories
Visually
Light
Lighting
Better
Shot
Different
Shots
Trying
Available
Work
Approach

More quotes by Vilmos Zsigmond

Image
For me, movies should be visual. If you want dialogue, you should read a book.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
Some movies are what I would call murky. Just because it's murky doesn't make it artistic. It makes it hard to see.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
Even in manipulating the images, I would like to do my dailies in a digital way because you can do so many things in that stage that I cannot do in real photography.
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 don't think there is any advantage to digital unless it's in a case like Slumdog Millionaire, where you have to get a shot and a big bulky film camera is out of the question.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
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
Image
There is a difference between creating something and just capturing something. And when we were using film, it was not that fast, and it was expensive, so there was incentive to make sure the shot was exactly right before we rolled. With digital, it's fast and its cheap, and it's easy to bypass the rest.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
When I first came to America there still was Look Magazine and LIFE Magazine, and the photography in those magazines was amazing to look at. They had the best portraits, and their news photography.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
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
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
I'm not really satisfied with the technology today. Using film was so much easier than the digital technology of today. But digital is still at the beginning of what it can be and they'll be fixing all those problems.
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
The studios are never going to make $200 million a picture with those types of movies. It's not familiar to them, and it's not a model that can necessarily be sustained. Now, if they go back to making movies about people ... well, I hope they do that.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
I think too many film students in America are losing the artistry and not learning lighting the right way.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
I was really fortunate from the time I arrived in Hollywood to work with some of the greatest directors from the beginning. I worked with Robert Altman, John Boorman, and of course Steven Spielberg, Michael Cimino, Brian De Palma ... I couldn't pick one of them they were all different, but they are all so talented.
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
There is something missing in a lot of digital filmmaking, something I call poetic reality. That's something you see played out in film noir, where the technique establishes the mood.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
Spielberg was very young and starting up when we did Sugarland Express and I loved that, but the main thing was that I really loved his talent.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
You used to feed a piece of celluloid into an editor. [Digital] is not expensive and that is an advantage, but I must say that I don't love it.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
There are a lot of directors out there that don't like to deal with actors, I think. Many of them have said something like, in the future they will actually manipulate the actors on their computers. But don't believe all this.
Vilmos Zsigmond