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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

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Vilmos Zsigmond
Age: 85 †
Born: 1930
Born: June 16
Died: 2016
Died: January 1
Cinematographer
Film Producer
Segedo
Life
Study
Magazine
Fact
Studying
White
Magazines
Black
Watching
Facts
Photography
Truth
Movies
Look
Learned
Looks
Probably

More quotes by Vilmos Zsigmond

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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
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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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You make a film for a million dollars and then it costs $10 million to sell it. That's the problem at the moment with independent filmmaking: You can make it cheap and then there's no money to market it.
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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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
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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
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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
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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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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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Sometimes the shots serve as homages to other movies and other directors, like Hitchcock.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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If you use hand-held techniques just to make the film stylish I think it's wrong.
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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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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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
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You can't just stick with what you know, you have to evolve.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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In Slumdog Millionaire when you are immersed in the point of view of children in the slum and the bustle of the city, the handheld camerawork is amazing. A handheld camera is perfect for establishing point-of-view and for instilling the feeling that you are there.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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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
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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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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
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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