A Quote by Werner Herzog

That shot in "Into the Inferno" somehow popped up while my editor and I were viewing the footage. I immediately said, "That looks like the opening shot because the camera approaches the action very slowly and we have enough time to insert some of the main credits into it." So it was a practical choice. At the same time, you see these tiny figures standing at the rim of something, and all of a sudden, the camera rises further and you find yourself looking straight down into an inferno.
The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.
When the photographer is nearby, I like to say, 'Quick, get a photo of me looking into the camera,' because I'm never looking into the camera. Christopher Nolan looks into the camera, but I think most directors don't, so whenever you see a picture of a director looking at the camera, it's fake.
A camera is a camera, a shot is a shot, how you tell the story is the main thing.
A good trick I learnt early on is not to immediately look at playback because once you know the shot, you can see when the camera is on you. It's best to stay 'in it' all the time, and just if it's on you, it's on you, and if it's not, it's not. It's the easiest way.
When you move the camera, or you do a shot like the crane down (in Shawshank) with them standing on the edge of the roof, then it's got to mean something. You've got to know why you're doing it; it's got to be for a reason within the story, and to further the story.
I had a rope around my waist, and the rope was attached into the helicopter in case I fell off. And the shot was a shot that began with Kim Novak going out of a house and getting into a bus. Then it was supposed to go over the countryside and find a freight train on which Bill Holden was standing. And then after seeing a good look at the freight train, the camera was supposed to move up into the sky for the end credits.
The weird thing is, if I'd made 'The Incredibles,' shot-for-shot - exactly the same script, same timing, same shots - in live action, it would be perceived very differently, and somehow more adult than me doing it in animation. I find that fascinating and frustrating.
Jack [Nicholson] really knows about the camera. He's one of the directors who likes to play with the camera. He'll change things around, play with lighting, things like that. He'll even spend hours on the set-up for an insert shot. He's an interested person who gets involved in all the aspects of the films he is making.
I feel every shot, every camera move, every frame, and the way you frame something and the choice of lens, I see all those things are really important on every shot.
Onstage, I enjoy the thrill of live performance - there is no substitute for that rush. On camera I enjoy the crafting of a scene, the widespread creative marksmanship happening all around you for every second of footage. Onstage you can suddenly feel solitary, like it's all on your shoulders, while on camera you feel like there are so many people working with you on every shot. Those are each unique and gratifying challenges.
Everywhere we walked we got plenty of attention due to the camera and sound men. The locals love to get on camera. [...] I'd seen footage of Gandhi surrounded like this and always thought it was because he was very popular, but now I wonder if it was just because he had a camera crew with him.
When you're in a two-shot together, you can't be the same as when you're both in singles. Try as you will, it cannot be the same as when you're in the shot together. It simply cannot be. It's physically impossible. You're behind the camera desperately wanting to help your colleague. When it's just you, on your own, it can be self-conscious in a way that you're not when we're just talking, you and I, and then all of a sudden it's me and then it's you. The two-shots were probably more natural.
Because of the way that I work with the actors and because a scene is not in this rigid and literal interpretation of something written, I can constantly change stuff, which means I can get a scene absolutely perfect, and then when we go to shoot it, the requirements of the shot mean it would be useful to extend the dialogue or take a line out or swap things around. So the camera doesn't serve the action. The action serves the camera. That's important. So it becomes more and more organic and integrated.
Most of the telly I do only has one camera and the reason you have to cook it twice is you have a close-up, so you see what is happening really close up and then you have a wide shot, which is like standing back so you see the whole fish and the kitchen and, like it or not, you have to do it twice.
When I walk with a camera, I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer.
Neorealism taught us to follow the characters with the camera, allowing each shot its own real interior time. Well, I became tired of all this; I could no longer stand real time. In order to function, a shot must show only what is useful.
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