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

Vilmos Zsigmond

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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

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I love Woody Allen. He's very clever, always thinking, and he's great with actors. He lets actors do what they want to do and occasionally he'll give them a specific kind of direction.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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For me, movies should be visual. If you want dialogue, you should read a book.
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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If you do not bother to take the time to compose and to light properly, then you end up with something almost less than reality. You end up without the soul, the heart, the art of the moment.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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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
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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
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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
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I should mention Vittorio Storaro, who was Bernardo Bertolucci's cinematographer. You watch those films and they are exceptional.
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 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 always try to tell the story the best possible way. I create the mood for each scene in a way that the audience feels that they are right there with me and they feel actually in the mood that was right for the scene.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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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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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
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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
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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
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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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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
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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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There is something more to reality than just the tangible. There is also mood, and you cannot skip that.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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The best way to know when there's good lighting is when you don't notice it.
Vilmos Zsigmond