Quote

A good [film] director is talented, imaginative, and does his homework.

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
Homework
Imaginative
Talented
Director
Directors
Film
Doe
Good

More quotes by Vilmos Zsigmond

Image
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
Image
If you use hand-held techniques just to make the film stylish I think it's wrong.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
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
Image
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
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
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
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
I don't know the American photographers as well, but I admit I love Ansel Adams. His landscapes are so crisp.
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
There is something more to reality than just the tangible. There is also mood, and you cannot skip that.
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
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 really like to work with people who know a lot, but they also give me space so I can add something to the movie.
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
I had never met Woody Allen before Melinda and Melinda. My agent knew the producer of the movie and he suggested that we would work well together and then we did. We had a great time on that film.
Vilmos Zsigmond
Image
When you are shooting a movie, you have to collaborate with many, many, many people. First of all, the director with all his own ideas and I can only just help him with that. I cannot change his idea.
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
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 should mention Vittorio Storaro, who was Bernardo Bertolucci's cinematographer. You watch those films and they are exceptional.
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