A Quote by John Knoll

Having been a cameraman, I think about, 'Well, if this was real, how would this be shot?' I try to inject as much realism as much as possible. — © John Knoll
Having been a cameraman, I think about, 'Well, if this was real, how would this be shot?' I try to inject as much realism as much as possible.
You read about poor people having Botox go wrong and you think: 'Well, what the bloody hell were you doing?' Why would you inject yourself with poison? And why are we spending so much time looking at ourselves? I just don't get it.
Anxiety is a really crippling condition, and I suffer with it myself, and I feel for anyone who suffers from it. The way that I deal with it is try as much as possible to stay in the moment to not think about the past and not think about what's coming up in the future: to try and just seize the moment as much as possible.
Movies cost so much that studios really try to impose their personality over yours. A lot of times, you can get swallowed up in that and end up making movies that are indistinguishable from anybody else's. One of the things I've always tried to do is to inject myself as much as possible into the movie, so I feel like it's mine. But that also comes from what you choose to do and what you choose not to do. There are certain projects I could have said yes to, and I know exactly how they would have turned out: exactly the way they turned out when someone else did them.
I think caring too much about the economics starts affecting the creative aspect of the film. That is a dangerous process for a filmmaker. He should make his film without having to worry about how much it has cost or how much it will be sold for.
I gravitate much more toward realism, realism in the work that I do, but magical realism got me hooked on film. I think it was my first time realizing that there was something besides popcorn movies.
When you think of how much violence, how much blood... how much has been destroyed to create the great nations, America, Australia, Britain, Germany, France, Belgium - even India, Pakistan. Having destroyed so much to make them, we must have nuclear weapons to protect them - and climate change to hold up their way of life... a two-pronged annihilation project.
Certainly, we all have within us the potential to live in a hugely different way. And how happy you can make yourself, I think, a lot depends on how much you beat yourself up about that; and how much you can, in some sort of providential way, console yourself and say, 'Well, it's all worked out for the best, in the best of all possible worlds.'
We're trying, despite having done research and having obviously preconceived ideas, we try our best to be as open-hearted as possible, and try to create context. So that's always going to be the challenge, making a program like 'Gaycation', and we are always thinking about it, reflecting on it, and doing our best to show the whole picture as much as possible in a 45-minute span. Hopefully that comes across.
I don't think I can break down any doors, but I'm thinking, "Maybe I can be a cameraman, because I love the cameras." And the cameraman would show me how to thread the film, how to repair it, the lenses. That's when you become, like, goony goo-goo about it. You breathe and eat camera, and all of a sudden, you don't want anything else in the world. You finally know, "This is my calling." When you're passionate about something, it doesn't become work. It's art and it's fun. It's arduous, it's sweaty.
I've often been asked why my shot-taking is not stylish, why I don't think about visual statements. The truth is, style is irrelevant. I never think of the shot as much as I think of the characters and what they are saying and doing.
For me, I try as much as possible to just think about being in the movie theatre, having the lights dim, and what would I want to see on the screen. That puts me in the frame of mind that made me want to be in the movie business to begin with.
There are some filmmakers like the Coen brothers that are very precise. They make shooting boards, they do it shot by shot, and they follow every single line in their own script. They make amazing movies, and I admire them so much, but I can't do that. I have no idea how the movie will exactly be. While shooting, I just try to create an accident that I don't control very well - grabbing things from different sources and ideas, and then having a sensation somewhere that it will make sense.
At the close of life the question will be not how much have you got, but how much have you given; not how much have you won, but how much have you done; not how much have you saved, but how much have you sacrificed; how much have you loved and served, not how much were you honored.
I think you can be much truer to real emotions and reality by creating something that on the surface seems artificial but, by then putting everything together in the end, is much more impactful than trying to use realism in every individual element of the film.
If you try to simplify it as much as possible, I guess you could say if a guy who is my size can move around the same as a guy who is much smaller, you would think there are maybe going to be a few more advantages.
I have people say that they love how I keep them off balance as to what is real or not real about pretty much everything I write. I think it's an accurate description of how I feel every day. I can't tell what's real and what's not anymore. I think that's what makes art.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!