Top 74 Cameraman Quotes & Sayings

People always seem to assume that we have a full, back-up support team - make-up, costume and a driver - but usually, in a war zone, there's only me and the cameraman.

In Hollywood, the cameraman lights the star. In Europe, he lights the set.

One thing I learnt was that you don't have to spend all day shooting: you can get it done in half an hour if you're that talented as a cameraman.

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.

Whether you're a cameraman or a director, you should ask yourself every now and then, 'What am I trying to do?' Be honest and keep things very simple.

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.

I was doing well in TV as a freelance cameraman, but it wasn't the direction I wanted to go in. I directed videos and tried to put something cinematic in every one. Dialogue, action sequences, helicopter, Steadicam.

I believe that the best cameraman is one who recognizes the source, the story, as the basis of his work.

There is the danger of over preparation, of loss of spontaneity; over rehearsal is the most terrible thing you can imagine. We do have a very close association between costume and set designer, though. And the cameraman is very important, of course.

A friend of mine - a cameraman at MTV - lost a lot of weight from cycling, and I thought Id try it, too, thinking whenever you look at a cyclist they all look super-skinny, so hey, why not? But then it turned into such a psychologically satisfying thing.

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 couldn't be a cameraman or a designer or an actor - I have to be a director because I learned how to do that from my dad.

Starting at age 10, my personality and my identity all stemmed from employment. I had a set to be at. I was a certain way with the cameraman, a certain way with the makeup lady - a normal, routine environment.

I grew up as a cameraman, so it's much easier for me to shoot it myself. I work with an operator and a crew, but it's way easier for me to function as a cinematographer, than to have a cinematographer between me and the lens. I don't need that.

In the old days, before there was such a thing as film schools, directors learned the camera by watching other directors, and learning from their own dailies, and listening to the cameraman, and seeing what would work. Some of those guys could cut their movies in their head.

It is not always important that you have dialogues. How you present your role depends on the director and the cameraman; the actor also has few things to do.

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.

On a movie, it's always better to stay invisible as much as you can to keep things calm. I like to whisper to my cameraman, I like to whisper to my actors, and whoever else I've gotten to whisper to.

I keep working with fairly inexperienced directors. You know, if you have a good crew, a good cameraman, you know, I know what I'm doing. If the actors know what they're doing, we can all pull together, and it works.

Often I pretended to a cameraman to know less than I did. That way I got more cooperation.

I have been at CNN my entire career. When I first started, I raised my hand and volunteered for everything. It allowed me to get a wide range of experience and learn from the best - whether it was a cameraman or an anchorman.

Deep down, all directors feel like frauds - because it's built into the nature of the job. You're the jack of all trades and the master of none. The cameraman knows the camera, the sound man knows the sound equipment - and you? You can't do anything: You can't do the acting, you can't dress the set, you don't record the sound or shoot the images.

Gene Mean, look at our body. Cameraman, zoom!

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 didn't even know I would be an actor; I always wanted to be a cameraman.

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.

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.

In 2009, I served as AARP's Ambassador of Caregiving. With a producer and cameraman, I traveled the country for months, interviewing hundreds of caregivers.

Since a camera is something too heavy for women and initially made for men, you need a good cameraman.

I don't care what business it is. I have the greatest respect in the world for that guy that can take an engine apart of a car and put it back together, or the house painter that can paint a perfect line, or the cameraman who can shoot the best shot. We're all talented in our own ways - just some of us make more money than others. That's all.

Jack Cardiff - the greatest cameraman who ever worked in colour - was a lab boy to start with so he knew Technicolor from the inside out.

I served at the Pentagon and at Fort Leavenworth - my job was video cameraman, and that allowed me to travel to places like Korea, Japan, Alaska, Germany and the Netherlands.

Justice precedes beauty. Without justice, beauty is impossible, an obscenity. And when beauty has gone, what does a cameraman do with his eye?

Anyone with a smart phone is a potential eyewitness cameraman capturing and transmitting stories at speeds that turn Reuter photos and traditional reporting into, well... yesterday’s news.

Yes, if I had it my way I would do all the shots myself - I used to do that when I was just a cameraman, an operator - but there's no way; you can't do that anymore.

For us as writers, it's really important to have songs we believe in - even before sometimes we shoot a scene. If we have a song that's so perfectly designed for a scene on 'Rescue Me,' we'll play it on loud speakers during the shooting. It helps the cameraman and it helps the director, and it helps the actors know what the feel is.

My dad was an actor and a writer; my mum was a drama teacher. My grandma was an actress. My aunt is an actress. My granddad was a cameraman. They would've been surprised if I wanted to be a dentist or something like that.

When Iron Man's flying, we'd send real planes up to do the choreography so that we'd get the camerawork to really look like a cameraman was following from another plane. It gives it that 'Top Gun' look.

The pictures from the first professional photo session that the young David Beckham submitted himself to are extraordinary. He has a barely suppressed smile, as though he and the cameraman are complicit in the understanding that this is not yet David Beckham we see and that there is an element of deceit in selling the photographs as such

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.

There are things that happen so quickly. A better cameraman can capture them, but if the light is not bright and you hoist up your camera by the time you've dialed in your settings. There are eye blink moments where you're like "Aaahhhh, I wish," but those are too many to catalogue. Nothing really sticks out.

Directing ain't about drawing a neat little picture and showing it to the cameraman. I didn't want to go to film school. I didn't know what the point was. The fact is, you don't know what directing is until the sun is setting and you've got to get five shots and you're only going to get two.

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.

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.

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 don't think a camera and a cameraman can destroy a family.

As a cameraman, I am interested in images and truth. Today, people are conditioned to accept lies if they are commercial lies. What we don't see anymore is ethics.

A friend of mine - a cameraman at MTV - lost a lot of weight from cycling, and I thought I'd try it, too, thinking whenever you look at a cyclist they all look super-skinny, so hey, why not? But then it turned into such a psychologically satisfying thing.

My work is made on lines similar to those of a film production. A lot of my work is kind of bureaucratic, endlessly phoning up people, trying to find the cameraman and the lighting man, because I am a total technology-phobe, quite helpless with equipment.

I thought it was ridiculous that I was being paid less than a cameraman, and I wanted to shame them. And I did.

I tried to get a job as a TV cameraman and they basically told me, 'You're mad, everyone wants these jobs - and if you go to England, you're doubly mad.' But I worked in abattoirs for 10 months to earn my money, then left for London. I didn't even know what a director did.

Usually in TV... A TV director could be anything from a main grip to just a glorified cameraman, and sometimes a director can be the person who is hired last. It's very much a producer's medium.

As a cameraman, I was paid to stand within a few feet of Yehudi Menuhin performing. I saw Rudolph Nureyev dancing. I couldn't believe I was being paid for that.

Anyone with a smart phone is a potential eyewitness cameraman capturing and transmitting stories at speeds that turn Reuter photos and traditional reporting into, well... yesterday's news.

Every film I've ever worked on, and that includes 'Braveheart' and 'Trainspotting,' I've always witnessed a director having a breakdown. Every director will have a day, without exception, where they just can't do it anymore, they don't know what to say to their cameraman, their cast. It's the sign of real, physical exhaustion.

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.

I can say, with a little arrogance, that I could be an actor, a cameraman, a writer, but composers are the most mysterious people.

There are times when it's absolutely appropriate to march up to someone, stick out your hand and introduce yourself, and times when it's best to let your male cameraman or producer do the talking and hang back until you've felt out the situation.

What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman.

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.