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The best way to know when there's good lighting is when you don't notice it.

Vilmos Zsigmond

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Vilmos Zsigmond
Age: 85 †
Born: 1930
Born: June 16
Died: 2016
Died: January 1
Cinematographer
Film Producer
Segedo
Lighting
Notice
Best
Way
Good

More quotes by 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 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 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
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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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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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I hope that film is going to stay as an artform and that people won't forget that there are good movies also to be made.
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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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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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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As an actor, Sean [Penn] is brilliant. And he's really an excellent director, as well. We got along really well.
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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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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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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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
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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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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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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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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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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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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