A Quote by Sydney Pollack
I have to have a working knowledge of light, and optics, film emulsions and their properties, and lenses, otherwise I can't create the shoots that are the vocabulary of the films. But it is not necessary for me to be a cameraman, I can hire a cameraman.
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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.
Vernon Fenwick. He's a cameraman at Channel 6 - he's April O'Neil's cameraman - and Vernon is a character who is from the 'Turtle' mythology.
On 'Catfish,' I'm a co-host and onscreen cameraman, maybe the second onscreen cameraman after Wes Bentley's turn in 'American Beauty,' which is funny and ironic. But before that, I'd been doing a lot of creative nonfiction.
It took me three, four years, to get from my first film to my second film, banging on doors, trying to get people to give me a chance. Writing, struggling, with no money in the bank, working as an editor on the side. Working as a cameraman on the side. Getting little jobs, eking out a living. Trying to stay alive, and pushing a script that nobody wanted.
I was on a picture for four or five days, had an opportunity to be on a set, and the assistant cameraman kept showing me things. One day I climbed the fence, knowing they needed an assistant cameraman. A couple of days later, I was one. The first day or two, it was pretty disastrous, but I knew something about photography, and I caught on quick.
My cameraman and I devised a method, which we started using from my second film, which applies mainly to day scenes shot in the studio, where we used bounced light instead of direct light. We agreed with this thing of four or five shadows following the actors is dreadful.
It's true that I don't think I'd be a good director. If I were a director, I'd try to hire the best people I could and then leave them alone. I don't know much about cameras or lighting, so I'd make sure that I had a really good cameraman who understood lenses and lighting, and I say to him, "This is the scene we have to shoot and this is what I think it should be, you go do it." Same with actors. But really, very good directors who know everything do basically the same thing. They hire you and then they leave you alone.
A film just doesn't involve actors, a director and a producer, there is also the cameraman, the sound engineer, the music composer, the lyric writer. So many people come together to make a film. When we all feel satisfied with the film that we have created it's a win for all of us.
I found the recording sessions very freeing because you can really try things. When you're filming something, if you're improvising a film and you're wasting film and wasting a cameraman's time.
When I move from being a cameraman to being a director I looked at a lot of other cameramen who tried to make the move. And in each case they moved up their camera operator to be the DP, which really meant they didn't want to give up being the DP, and really wanted to do both. And my feeling was if I was going to succeed as a director, I had to just be a director and give up the safety net of being a cameraman.
I did a few documentaries as co-director and cameraman. I started off shooting a film about the war in Rhodesia. Then I did a film about an 'around the world' yacht race with a friend, and we spent nine months on a yacht. The film was about how people get on in confined spaces under extreme stress.
We were on a fairway shooting a scene in 'The Dogleg Murders' when I was asked by the cameraman if it was safe to film from where he was standing. I said, 'Yes, it'll be fine.' I then managed to slice the ball 90 degrees into the camera.
I have a team, the same team of filmmakers I worked with on 'Pi' and 'Requiem'. Which is my cameraman, and my composer, and my producer. We've all worked together for a number of films.
I think the most important work that is going on has to do with the search for very general and abstract features of what is sometimes called universal grammar: general properties of language that reflect a kind of biological necessity rather than logical necessity; that is, properties of language that are not logically necessary for such a system but which are essential invariant properties of human language and are known without learning. We know these properties but we don't learn them. We simply use our knowledge of these properties as the basis for learning.
I never take credit for my movie's success. I am the face of the movie, but there are numerous unsung heroes behind the scene. From the director, cameraman and editor to the light boy, everyone knows how difficult it is to satisfy the audience.
I don't think a camera and a cameraman can destroy a family.
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