Whether you’re a photographer looking to add some cinematic flair to your photos, someone who’s planning on making their first short film, or an experienced filmmaker looking for inspiration from the best in the business, then this is the article for you.

Recommended Site: filmmakingquotes.com

So without ado, here’s my list of the greatest filmmaking quotes. Don’t forget to bookmark the page, and share it with others!

Filmmaking Quotes
The Filmmaker
The Script
Directing
Working with Actors
Editing
Sound and Music

Author note: These are notes and quotes on the filmmaking process that I have accumulated over fifteen years. Recently I added a few more to the list and thought it would make a great article. Is the article too long? Maybe. However, if it can help at least one person out there, then all the effort would have been worth it. Finally, good luck on your film journey. I look forward to seeing your film. All the best, David

The Best Filmmaking Quotes

I make pictures to tell a story, to tell lies, and to amuse.

Federico Fellini

No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul.

Ingmar Bergman

Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes.

Robert Altman

I want my audience to be constantly captivated, bewitched, so that it leaves the theatre dazed, stunned to be back on the pavement.

Francois Truffaut

Filmmaking for me is always aiming for the imaginary movie and never achieving it.

Peter Jackson

A movie is really provocation. It’s not a message, it’s not a statement.

Ang Lee

For me, the great joy is to watch an audience watching what I’ve made. To hear not a peep from the audience at the right moment, and then to hear the laughs and the cheers.

Michael Bay

I just love photographing things and putting them together to tell a story.

Christopher Nolan

I don’t dream at night, I dream at day, I dream all day; I’m dreaming for a living.

Steven Spielberg

My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.

Robert Bresson

I’m drawn to filmmaking that can transport me. Film can immerse you, put you there.

Kathryn Bigelow

When I’m making a film, I’m the audience.

Martin Scorsese

The Power of Cinema

Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.

Jean-Luc Godard

The most amazing thing for me is that every single person who sees a movie, not necessarily one of my movies, brings a whole set of unique experiences. Now, through careful manipulation and good storytelling, you can get everybody to clap at the same time, to hopefully laugh at the same time, and to be afraid at the same time.

Steven Spielberg

There is something that might be called cinematic beauty. It can only be expressed in a film, and it must be present in a film for that film to be a moving work. When it is very well expressed, one experiences a particularly deep emotion while watching that film. I believe it is this quality that draws people to come and see a film, and that it is the hope of attaining this quality that inspires the filmmaker to make his film in the first place. In other words, I believe that the essence of the cinema lies in cinematic beauty.

Akira Kurosawa

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something as in a dream.

Federico Fellini

The cinema is really built for the big screen and big sound, so that a person can go into another world and have an experience.

David Lynch

Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.

Roman Polanski

I’ve always believed that true cinema is cinema of the imagination.

Sergio Leone

What Makes a Good Movie

As a filmmaker, I believe in trying to make movies that invite the audience to be part of the film; in other words, there are some films where I’m just a spectator and am simply observing from the front seat. What I try to do is draw the audience into the film and have them participate in what’s happening on-screen.

Peter Jackson

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

Orson Welles

You have to design your film just as Shakepeare did his plays – for an audience.

Alfred Hitchcock

A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes.

Howard Hawks

I believe what Walt Disney said “For every laugh there should be a tear.” I love movies that make me cry, because they’re tapping into a real emotion in me, and I always think afterwards “How did they do that?”

John Lasseter

A movie is a little like a question, and when you make it, that’s when you get the answer.

Francis Ford Coppola

Everything’s always about page-turning, right? What’s next? So, if you create questions for audiences, then they’ll want to know the answer. Or they begin to formulate possible outcomes. That’s the game we play when we’re hearing a story unfold. That’s part of what sucks us into a movie.

Ron Howard

A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provide they come close together.

Federico Fellini

I like happy endings in movies. I think life has a happy ending. When it’s all said and done, it’s all something worthwhile, and I want my movies to reflect that. There are enough things to be sad about. When you pop in a movie, let the message be one that’s one of hope.

Jon Favreau

Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union.

Samuel Goldwyn

You know when Hollywood does a great big blockbuster that really wraps you up in a world, and lets you believe in extraordinary things that move you in some way, in an almost operatic sensibility? That to me is the most fun I have at the movies.

Christopher Nolan

I’d rather entertain and hope that people learn, than teach and hope that people are entertained.

Walt Disney

Pictures that will live on for years, like ‘The Birth of a Nation’ and ‘Gone With the Wind,’ had great historical events in the background.

William Wyler

To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, “Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.”

Francis Ford Coppola

If it’s a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a pretty clear idea of what was going on.

Alfred Hitchcock

Commercial Success

The public has an appetite for anything about imagination – anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible.

Steven Spielberg

I don’t try to guess what a million people will like. It’s hard enough to know what I like.

John Huston

If there’s something that can be formulated, regulated, give you security, then nobody would lose money. Every movie would be successful. And that’s certainly not the case.

Ang Lee

If the boy and girl walk off into the sunset hand-in-hand in the last scene, it adds 10 million to the box office.

George Lucas

The theatrical marketplace is a challenge. What do you have to do to get someone to purchase a movie ticket to your movie? You have to do something that they’ve never seen before; you’ve got to enthrall them in a new way.

Richard Linklater

I don’t believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.

Charlie Chaplin

Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.

Walt Disney

The Filmmaker

There is only one way of looking at this trade: The filmmaker is responsible for everything. To rephrase that thought: Everything is your fault, and only rarely will you be praised for anything. But face it, if something goes wrong with your work, you the filmmaker (director), who fought for total control, as we all do, should not have allowed it to happen. If you’re going to work in films then you must straight off accept total responsibility. That’s why you need to know something about all aspects of the process.

Elia Kazan

The thing is, as a film director, you’re essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you know the film you see in your head.

Mike Nichols

To be a filmmaker, you have to lead. You have to be psychotic in your desire to do something. People always like the easy route. You have to push very hard to get something unusual, something different.

Danny Boyle

Everything a director does must help the story and the performances. Otherwise, it is useless.

William Wyler

Good directing is good writing and good casting.

Robert Zemeckis

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, “If you don’t know how to make the right decision, you’re not a director.”

George Lucas

The director’s task is to recreate life, its movement, its contradictions, its dynamic and conflicts. It is his duty to reveal every iota of the truth he has seen, even if not everyone finds that truth acceptable.

Andrei Tarkovsky

Film is a dramatised reality and it is the director’s job to make it appear real… an audience should not be conscious of technique.

David Lean

Each picture has some sort of rhythm which only the director can give it. He has to be like the captain of a ship.

Fritz Lang

Unless you know every aspect and phase of the film-production process, you can’t be a movie director. A movie director is like a front-line commanding officer. He needs a thorough knowledge of every branch of the service, and if he doesn’t command each division, he cannot command the whole.

Akira Kurosawa

There is a great skill in blending together good performances and a good story. Enormous finesse. But there’s no mystery to it from a technical point of view. Millions of people have gone to the movies all their lives could direct circles around me. They get everything going beautifully ; their photography is great and their movies are beautiful. But where they fall short, like many TV commercial directors who make movies, is that they don’t have a dramatic sense or a sense of comedy. That’s why Bunuel’s films can look terrible and still be masterpieces, because overwhelmingly what’s important is content. Every piece of junk that comes out looks good. Because a director can just go out and hire a first-rate cameraman and a first-rate editor, and they all know what to do.

Woody Allen

Making your First Film

When you’re doing films, just with friends, with no money, on a shoestring. You have to be able to do all the job… And it’s a wonderful way to learn everything.

Christopher Nolan

If you wait until the right time to have a child you’ll die childless, and I think film making is very much the same thing. You just have to take the plunge and just start shooting something even if it’s bad.

James Cameron

The best education in film is to make one. I would advise any neophyte director to try to make a film by himself. A three-minute short will teach him a lot. I know that all the things I did at the beginning were, in microcosm, the things I’m doing now as a director and producer. The point to stress is that anyone seriously interested in making a film should find as much money as he can as quickly as he can and go out and do it. And this is no longer as difficult as it once was.

Stanley Kubrick

It’s the same thing of how you get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice. (laughs) Also, I’d say get a hold of a video camera and just shoot as much as you can, of anything. If you have a script, get a couple actors together and shoot two pages from the script, then edit the footage on a really basic video editing program. It takes as long to develop a prose style on film as it does a prose style in writing, so it’s crucial to practice whenever and however you can.

John McTiernan

For anyone who wants to direct but hasn’t made a first movie yet, there is no decision to make. Whatever the movie, whatever the auspices, whatever the problems, if there’s a chance to direct, takeit! Period. Exclamation point! The first movie is its own justification, because it’s the first movie.

Sidney Lumet

There are many talented people who haven’t fulfilled their dreams because they over thought it, or they were too cautious, and were unwilling to make the leap of faith.

James Cameron

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

Walt Disney

Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you’re a director. Everything after that you’re just negotiating your budget and your fee.

James Cameron

Finding your Style

I always tell young film-makers, ‘Find the song that only you can sing.’ It doesn’t just come to you. It’s trial and error and disappointment before you find, slowly but surely, the confidence to express your film-making identity.

Paul Greengrass

Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable to others.

Orson Welles

Everybody has talent, it’s just a matter of moving around until you’ve discovered what it is.

George Lucas

I don’t make films for other people; I make films for me.

Ridley Scott

Don’t look at all at what other people are doing. Think of what you’re doing as completely fresh because if you imitate you’re dead.

Robert Rodriguez

My advice to young film-makers is this: don’t follow trends, start them!

Frank Capra

Taking Risks

I have this theory that your first film is always your best film in some way. I always try to get back to that moment when you’re not relying on things you’ve done before.

Danny Boyle

If we didn’t want to upset anyone, we would make films about sewing, but even that could be dangerous. But I think finally, in a film, it is how the balance is and the feelings are. But I think there has to be those contrasts and strong things within a film for the total experience.

David Lynch

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.

Orson Welles

People say I am stuck in childhood, but it’s not that. I remember seeing a Matisse retrospective, and you could see he started out one way, and then he tried something different, and then he seemed to spend his whole life trying to get back to the first thing.

Tim Burton

If you’re going to be an R already, you may as well be ‘The Hangover,’ and you may as well be as shocking as possible, because that’s what delivers the most return.

Jon Favreau

What the studios want now is “risk-free” films but with any sort of art you have to take risks. Not taking risks in art is like not having sex and then expecting there to be children.

Francis Ford Coppola

I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.

Michelangelo Antonioni

I’ve always believed that if you want to really try and make a great film, not a good film, but a great film, you have to take a lot of risks.

Christopher Nolan

The Script

To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script, and the script.

Alfred Hitchcock

Well, there’s no question that a good script is an absolutely essential, maybe the essential thing for a movie.

Sydney Pollack

There’s nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay.

Richard Attenborough

A director shouldn’t get in the way of the movie, the story should.

Frank Darabont

Give me a good script, and I’ll be a hundred times better as a director.

George Cukor

You can’t fix a bad script after you start shooting. The problems on the page only get bigger as they move to the big screen.

Howard Hawks

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.

George Lucas

With a good script, a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this.

Akira Kurosawa

It’s eighty percent script and twenty percent you get great actors. There’s nothing else to it.

William Wyler

Writing the Screenplay

In order to write scripts, you must first study the great novels and dramas of the world. You must consider why they are great. Where does the emotion come from that you feel as you read them? What degree of passion did the author have to have, what level of meticulousness did he have to command, in order to portray the characters and events as he did? You must read thoroughly, to the point where you can grasp all these things. You must also see the great films. You must read the great screenplays and study the film theories of the great directors. If your goal is to become a film director, you must master screenwriting.

Akira Kurosawa

I don’t have to write it down after I’ve thought of it. My outline for a movie rarely takes up a single page. Usually I lose interest in the middle of writing the outline. I write, yo know, “Alvy meets Annie. Romantic scene. Flashback to when they met.” I’ll write like eight of those and by the time I get to the eight or ninth, I’ll have lost interest because I know the story so well I don’t really have do be doing this.

Woody Allen

The best rule of screen and play writing was given to me by John Howard Lawson, a one time friend. Its simple: unity from climax. Everything should build to the climax. But all I know about script preparation urges me to make no rules, although there are some hints, tools of the trade, that have been useful for me. One of these is: Have your central character in every scene. This is a way of ensuring unity to the work and keeping the focus sharp. Another is: Look for the contradictions in every character, especially in your heroes and villains. No one should be what they first seem to be. Surprise the audience.

Elia Kazan

One of the cardinal sins for a scriptwriter, when he runs into some difficulty, is to say, “We can cover that by a line of dialogue.” Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.

Alfred Hitchcock

Screenwriting is not real writing. It’s not. You’re not writing a book. You’re writing the basics, the situation, where they are and what they’re doing should really say everything. And leave room for actors to do something… Good writing belongs in books. Screenwriting should be absolutely as economic as possible so that the filmmaking can take over.

Paul Thomas Anderson

Writing a screenplay, for me, is like juggling. It’s like, how many balls can you get in the air at once? All those ideas have to float out there to a certain point, and then they’ll crystallize into a pattern.

James Cameron

Drama, Conflict and Plot

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

Alfred Hitchcock

I made some mistakes in drama. I thought the drama was when the actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.

Frank Capra

There’s no story if there isn’t some conflict. The memorable things are usually not how pulled together everybody is. I think everybody feels lonely and trapped sometimes.

Wes Anderson

For me the best drama is one that deals with a man in danger.

Howard Hawks

Audiences are less intrigued, honestly, by battle. They’re more intrigued by human relations. If you’re making a film about the trappings of the period, and you’re forgetting that human relationships are the most engaging part of the storytelling process, then you’re in trouble.

Ridley Scott

Storytelling is about two things; it’s about character and plot.

George Lucas

Suspense

Every story needs an element of suspense – or it’s lousy.

Sydney Pollack

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.

Alfred Hitchcock

There is a distinct difference between “suspense” and “surprise,” yet many pictures continually confuse the two.

Let us suppose there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and the all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised , but prior to this surprise, it had seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no consequence.

Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware that the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock, and there is a clock in the décor. The public can see that it is quarter to one. In these conditions the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: “You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There’s a bomb beneath you and it’s about to explode!”

In the first case we have given the audience fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of explosion. In the second, we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible, the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.

Alfred Hitchcock

Structure

A screenplays worth has to be measured less by its language than by its architecture and by how that dramatizes the theme. A screenplay, we directors soon enough learn, is not a piece of writing so much as it is a construction. We learn to feel for the skeleton under the skin of words.

Elia Kazan

A good structure for a screenplay is that of the symphony, with its three or four movements and differing tempos. Or one can use the Noh play with its three-part structure: jo (introduction), ha (de­struction) and kyu (haste). If you devote yourself fully to Noh and gain something good from this, it will emerge naturally in your films.

Akira Kurosawa

A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.

Jean-Luc Godard

A scene has to have a rhythm of its own, a structure of its own.

Michelangelo Antonioni

People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don’t have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.

Steven Spielberg

Show. Not Tell.

I started to grasp that storytellers turn to evocative images for a reason – these things are evocative because they have layers that film-goers can pick up and interpret in their own own way. And that was something I very much needed to learn and get on board with.

Christopher Nolan

A film script is more architecture than literature. This will get my friends who are writers mad, but its the truth: The director tells the movie story more than the man who writes the dialogue. The director is the final author, which is the reason so many writers now want to become directors. Its all one piece. Many of the best films ever made can be seen without dialogue and be perfectly understood. The director tells the essential story with pictures.

Elia Kazan

My films are basically silent films. The dialogue just adds some weight.

Sergio Leone

I find dialogue a bore, for the most part. I think that if you look back on any film you’ve seen, you don’t remember lines of dialogue, you remember pictures.

David Lean

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.

Ingmar Bergman

So I like to try to go back and develop pure visual storytelling. Because to me, it’s one of the most exciting aspects of making movies and almost a lost art at this point.

Brian De Palma

To me, a story can be both concrete and abstract, or a concrete story can hold abstractions. And abstractions are things that really can’t be said so well with words.

David Lynch

Film operates on a level much closer to music and to painting than to printed word, and, of course, movies present the opportunity to convey complex concepts and abstractions without the traditional reliance on words. I think that 2001, like music, succeeds in short-circuiting the rigid surface cultural blocks that shackle our consciousness to narrowly limited areas of experience and is able to cut directly through to areas of emotional comprehension. In two hours and twenty minutes of film there are only forty minutes of dialogue.

Stanley Kubrick

Directing

I have come to a certain belief, which is based on three powerful effective commandments. Thou shalt be entertaining at all times. Thou shalt obey thy artistic consciousness at all times. Thou shalt make each film as if it it thy last.

Ingmar Bergman

The film director knows that beneath the surface of his screenplay there is a subtext, an undercurrent of intentions and feelings and inner events, What appears to be happening on the surface, he soon learns, is rarely the true substance of the action. This subtext is one of the film director’s most valuable tools. It is what he directs. You rarely see a veteran director holding a script as he works – or even looking at it. Beginners, yes.

Elia Kazan

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.

John Huston

What a director should be doing is making it appear as though there was no script.

John Hughes

I believe it is the pre-production planning that is the most important aspect of filmmaking. Based upon my own experience, I can tell you that my most successful films have been those that were made when I’ve been completely prepared going in.

Roger Corman

Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it’s not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people’s eyes.

John Ford

Directing the Scene

I watched a couple of really bad directors work, and I saw how they completely botched it up and missed the visual opportunities of the scene when we had put things in front of them as opportunities. Set pieces, props and so on.

James Cameron

Time is gold in filmmaking. The ability to not walk away from a scene before its perfected.

Stanley Kubrick

Till now I have never shot a scene without taking account of what stands behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings is of prime importance.

Michelangelo Antonioni

Creating a Shot List

Now before shooting anything, you should really watch your movie in your head. Play it out in your head, watching it while imagining the actors and angles you’ve chosen. Picture the scene. See what cuts you’d make if you were editing it together. Would you stay on one actor the whole time, or would you cut mid-scene to something else? Watch the movie In your head; then when you think you’ve seen something interesting, get out a piece of paper and make your shot list. List each shot you need to make the scene work. Don’t overdo it, just follow your instincts. On a low-budget, shoot-from-the hip kind of movie your instincts are all you’ve got, so start learning to trust them.

After you’ve made your shot list, go through it. Read the shots you’ve written and watch them in your head, as if it’s a cut movie. Are you missing any shots? Watch it again. What shots do you see in the movie that you’re watching in your head which are not written down. Write those down. Now keep that shot list handy because now with your list you can concentrate on one shot at a time. All you have to do now is get each shot and cross it off the list. When your list is completely crossed off you’re done for the day. Congratulations.

Robert Rodriguez

Every scene has been done before. The idea is to photograph it better then what’s already there.

Stanley Kubrick

Shooting the Scene

If my movie has two stars in it, I always know it really has three. The third star is the camera.

Sidney Lumet

People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God’s sake, I’m not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I’m making a movie that people are going to look at.

Ridley Scott

I have no imagination at all. I see beauty in the world and frame it correctly.

Akira Kurosawa

When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it. My technique, which differs from film to film, is wholly instinctive and never based on prior considerations.

Michelangelo Antonioni

Finding where to put the camera is probably the most important thing you have to learn when you’re a young director, and it’s something that’s a mixture of instinct and technique.

Paul Greengrass

Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.

Martin Scorsese

I don’t shoot movies quickly because I get a lot of coverage and a lot of angles, so we have all the pieces in the editing. I do a lot of takes, but it’s because I’m looking for something.

Nancy Meyers

I never think of the camera until the scene has been almost lit. I think the camera is the last thing. You see, to think of the camera first is like tailoring the suit and then looking for a person who will fit it. I’d rather get the person and then take the measurements and then make a suit for him.

Roman Polanski

In the film business you’re taught all the things the cameraman doesn’t want to attempt for fear he will be criticized for having failed. In this case I had a cameraman who didn’t care if he was criticized if he failed, and I didn’t know there were things you couldn’t do. So anything I could think up in my dreams, I attempted to photograph.

Orson Welles

The Film Crew

A poet needs a pen, a painter a brush, and a director an army.

Orson Welles

I don’t go on set with an army of people because the most expensive elements of a movie production are the plane tickets, the hotel rooms, food and gasoline. If you’re willing to discover new colleagues in the place that you are, you can save a ton of money.

Francis Ford Coppola

I think, at the end of the day, filmmaking is a team, but eventually there’s got to be a captain.

Ridley Scott

I like to work with the same people when I can, and you want to get people with the same interests that you have, and the same aesthetic.

Spike Lee

I mean, you have to be able – you have to have made the commitment within yourself to do whatever it takes to get the job done and to try to inspire other people to do it, because obviously the first rule is you can’t do it by yourself.

James Cameron

Collaboration

I always argued against the auteur theory; films are a collaborative art form. I’ve had some fantastically good people help me make the movies.

Alan Parker

So far as directing the actors and the crew is concerned, well, I direct just as little as possible and I get as much from others as I possibly can. Some of the best ideas I’ve ever had have come from other people.

John Huston

At some point during the filmmaking process, you lose objectivity, and you need the eyes of someone who understands the process and has been in the trenches.

Sydney Pollack

When I was a kid, there was no collaboration; it’s you with a camera bossing your friends around. But as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself.

Steven Spielberg

Working with Actors

The talent of acting is one in which the actor’s thoughts and feelings are instantly communicated to the audience. In other words, the“instrument” that an actor is using is himself. It is his feelings, his physiognomy, his sexuality, his tears, his laughter, his anger, his romanticism, his tenderness, his viciousness, that are up there on the screen for all to see. That’s not easy. In fact, quite often it’s painful.

Sidney Lumet

In general, actors or actresses must have the art in the accumulation of their past. Their life’s experience is the director’s material. They can have all the training, all the techniques their teachers have taught them – private moments, improvisations, substitutions,associative memories, and so on – but if the precious material is not within them, the director cannot get it out. That is why it’s so important for the director to have an intimate acquaintance with the people he casts in his plays. If it’s “there,” he has a chance of putting it on the screen or on the stage. If not, not.

Elia Kazan

If there is something magic about the collaborations I have with actors it’s because I put the character first.

Quentin Tarantino

My approach with actors is to try and give them whatever it is they need from me. Direction to me is about listening and responding and realizing how much they need to know from me and how much they have figured out for themselves, really.

Christopher Nolan

I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That’s the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.

Mike Nichols

Directing Actors

It took me a long time to realize that you have to have a bit of an interlanguage with actors. You have to give them something that they can act with.

James Cameron

The thing about Brando was that I’d make these directions, and he’d walk away. He’d heard enough… to get the machine going.

Elia Kazan

The directors job is to know what emotional statement he wants a character to convey in his scene or line, and to exercise taste and judgement in helping the actor give his best performance. By knowing the actors personality and gauging their strengths and weaknesses a director can help them to overcome specific problems and realize their potential. The director’s taste and imagination play a much more crucial role in the making of a film. Is it meaningful? Is it believable? Is it interesting? Those are the questions that have to be answered several hundred times a day.

Stanley Kubrick

Some actors like encouragement. Some actors prefer to have pressure. And sometimes, for some actors, its better to give your comment by silence, because they are so skillful, so gifted, that they understand without talking too much.

Wong Kar-wai

If you get an impulse in a scene, no matter how wrong it seems, follow the impulse. It might be something and if it ain’t – take two!

Jack Nicholson

One of the most important things in an acting scene, especially a short acting scene, is not to talk about the scene that precedes but to play out the scene that precedes. You play out where the actors have come from psychologically so their ride into a scene is a correct one…Once you’ve done that, you divide the scene – or I tend to – into sections, into movements. Stanislavsky called them “beats.” The point is that there are sections in life. Sometimes even a short scene has a three-act structure. You lay bare the actor, you make him understand and appreciate the structure beneath the lines. That’s what’s called the subtext, and dealing with the subtext is one of the critical elements in directing actors. In other words, not what is said, but what happens.

Elia Kazan

Film Editing Quotes

The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics – the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room.

Orson Welles

The most enjoyable part of directing or filmmaking for me is editing. It is literally the language of filmmaking. It is right there, and you learn constantly how dumb you are and how much you have to learn everytime you take a picture into the cutting room.

William Freidkin

Editing is the only aspect of cinematic art that is unique. It shares no connection with any other art form: writing, acting, photography, things that are major aspects of the cinema, are still not unique to it, but editing is.

Stanley Kubrick

Editing feels almost like sculpting or a form of continuing the writing process.

Sydney Pollack

The essence of cinema is editing. It’s the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy.

Francis Ford Coppola

[on his background as an editor] It’s everything. I often wonder at directors who’ve never been editors. I just don’t understand how they go to work. I kind of piece it together as we’re making it. And editing is one of the, if not the, chief of the tools of my trade.

David Lean

Editing the Film

To me, there are two main elements to editing: juxtapositioning images and creating tempo. Sometimes an image is so meaningful or beautiful that it can capture or illuminate our original question: What is this movie about? In Murder on the Orient Express, the shot of the train leaving Istanbul had that quality. It had all the mystery, glamour, nostalgia, action I wanted the entire movie to have.

Sidney Lumet

Well, you always discover a lot in the editing room. Particularly the action, because you have to over-shoot a lot and shoot an enormous amount of material because many of the sequences have to be discovered in the editing and manipulation of it.

Christopher Nolan

When the great actor says the line, you can put scissors precisely at the point A and it’s wonderful. When the star says the line, you can hold for four frames longer because something else happens.

David Lean

I never discuss the plots of my films. I never release a synopsis before I begin shooting. How could I? Until the film is edited, I have no idea myself what it will be about. And perhaps not even then. Perhaps the film will only be a mood, or a statement about a style of life. Perhaps it has no plot at all. I depart from the script constantly. I may film scenes I had no intention of filming; things suggest themselves on location, and we improvise. I try not to think about it too much. Then, in the cutting room, I take the film and start to put it together and only then do I begin to get an idea of what it is about.

Michelangelo Antonioni

The most important requirement for editing is objectivity. No matter how much difficulty you had in obtaining a particular shot, the audience will never know. If it is not interesting, it simply isn’t interesting. You may have been full of enthusiasm during the filming of a particular shot, but if that enthusiasm doesn’t show on the screen, you must be objective enough to cut it.

Akira Kurosawa

Sound and Music Quotes

The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.

George Lucas

Almost every picture is improved by a good musical score. To start with, music is a quick way to reach people emotionally. Over the years, movie music has developed so many clichés of its own that the audience immediately absorbs the intention of the moment: the music tells them, sometimes even in advance. Generally, that would be the sign of a bad score, but even bad scores work.

Sidney Lumet

I always shoot my movies with score as certainly part of the dialogue. Music is dialogue. People don’t think about it that way, but music is actually dialogue. And sometimes music is the final, finished, additional dialogue. Music can be one of the final characters in the film.

Ridley Scott

When you manage to express something with a look and the music instead of saying it with words or having the character speak, I think it’s a more complete work.

Sergio Leone

I’ve always felt that music is more expressive than dialogue. I’ve always said that my best dialogue and screenwriter is Ennio Morricone. Because, many times, it is more important a note or an orchestration than a line said.

Sergio Leone

I’ve never used John Williams to tell people how to feel. I use John Williams to enhance my vision and my thoughts emotionally from scene to scene.

Steven Spielberg

Sometimes, scenes are great without any music at all.

Ridley Scott

The Exorcist is amazing because it recognizes that silences can be as powerful as sound effects.

Frank Darabont

Have a Favorite Filmmaking Quote?

If you’ve made it to the end of the article, then congratulations. I hope you picked up some valuable filmmaking lessons on the way.

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• The Best Cinematography Quotes
• 25 Stanley Kubrick Quotes for Photographers

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Cinematography Quotes

Forget the camera. The nature of the story determines the photographic style. Understand the story and make the most out of it. If the audience is conscious of tricks and effects, the cameraman’s genius, no matter how great it is, is wasted.

Gregg Toland

There are no rules and there is no formula to filling the frame to please everybody. I’ve got this corny saying though: ’There are three types of photography: good photography, bad photography and the right photography. The right photography is what tells the story best.’

Freddy Francis

I think the point of cinematography, of what we do, is intimacy. Is intent, is the balance between the familiar and the dream, it is being subjective and objective, it is being engaged and yet standing back and noticing something that perhaps other people didn’t notice before, or celebrating something that you feel is beautiful or valid, or true or engaging in some way.

Christopher Doyle

Sometimes I wish nobody would talk about how the movies are made. The idea would be that the audience goes to the theatre and they don’t even notice how it’s shot. I want the audience to just become immersed in the movie and feel the anxiety that the character goes through while his life implodes. That would be ideal.

Emmanuel Lubezki

The Role of the Cinematographer

A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist – moving an audience through a movie … making them think the way you want them to think, painting pictures in the dark.

Gordon Willis

The cinematographer is an executive of the production and has to run things for the director. You also have to read his mind and then get that up on the screen, because any good director has already shot the picture in his head and can see those images. They can be improved, but they are there.

Freddy Francis

A cinematographer has to design and write a story, starting at the beginning, through the evolution to the end. That’s why I consider my profession is as a writer of light.

Vittorio Storaro

The director of photography visualizes the picture purely from a photographic point of view, as determined by lights and the mood of the individual sequences and scenes. In other words, how to use angles, set-ups, lights, and camera as a means to tell the story.

John Alton

A cinematographers’ job is to light and make the actors and actresses look as good as possible. Directors are responsible for their performance. The cinema-tographer is responsible for their appearance on screen. Directors don’t want to know about performers looking good; they can’t be bothered with all that. All they are concerned with is their performance.

Oswald Morris

There’s always the intention to create visually stunning images, but ultimately, my greatest concern is to stay true to the drama of the scene.

Janusz Kamiński

Cameramen don’t necessarily determine the look of a picture, as much as the cameraman and director together. It’s a dialogue. For me, the most successful experiences are with a director who already has some vision.

John Bailey

The cameraman confers with the director on:

(a) the composition of shots for action, since some scenes require definite composition for their best dramatic effect, while others require the utmost fluidity, or freedom from any strict definition or stylization; (b) atmosphere; (c) the dramatic mood of the story, which they plan together from beginning to end; (d) the action of the piece.

Because of the mechanics of the camera and the optical illusions created by the lenses, the cameraman may suggest changes of action which will better attain the effect desired by the director.

Many times, a director is confronted with specific problems of accomplishing action. The cameraman may propose use of the camera unknown to the director which will achieve the same realism.

James Wong Howe

The films I’m happiest with are the films where everything comes together, starting with a good script, the right director, a good cast and a good art director. It’s the bringing together of a team of people to bring a wholeness and a unity to the subject. I think the cinematographer’s work is part of the whole.

Billy Williams

A cinematographer doesn’t actually operate the camera, he really directs how it operates and directs all the people that surround the camera. So really what they’re paying for is your ability to handle those people.

Bill Butler

The biggest challenge of any cinematographer is making the imagery fit together of a piece: that the whole film has a unity to it, and actually, that a shot doesn’t stand out.

Roger Deakins

My career is based primarily upon finding a balance with a director and their vision, and that means sublimating my own personal ego toward their material.

Robert Richardson

Finding Projects

My rule is that if a movie doesn’t say something of value for the audience, I don’t think it’s worth making. You only have time to make so many pictures in your life. Maybe 75 percent of the time, you can tell if a film will be worthwhile when you read the script, but I’ve been fooled on occasion.

There were times when I thought something was going to be a good movie, but it didn’t turn out that way. There are so many things that have to come together — the actors, the director, the script.

Vilmos Zsigmond

First of all, it’s the script. The more experience I get the more I see that a problematic or mediocre script in the hands of a brilliant director is still going to have problems. A brilliant script in the hands of an okay director can still be a very good film.

I’m coming to have more and more respect for what the script is and whether it can be successfully wrought or not. And if it isn’t, what are the chances it can be pulled together before you start shooting.

John Bailey

I’m very attracted to directors who want to experiment. The thing that attracts me the most are people who are trying find a language that is correct for their film, for that specific film.

Emmanuel Lubezki

When I read a script and like the story, I respond to it on an emotional level, I have a concept of who the characters are and where the story is taking us, and I then imagine how I can enhance the storytelling through visuals. The story automatically dictates how I’m going to light it.

That may sound simple, but it’s not, because it’s my personal interpretation of a script that allows me to create the visuals. That interpretation is based on my own life experiences, aesthetics, education, and knowledge, all of which help to shape my understanding of a story.

Janusz Kamiński

It has to come out of the material. Shakespeare said, “The play is the thing.” That’s still valid. If you don’t have a play, if you don’t have the dramatics, if you don’t have something to say about people, then what have you got?

Laszlo Kovacs

I won’t work with a director unless I feel that I’m on his wavelength. The three or four weeks I need in preparation for a picture mainly consists of just talking to the director so I can understand what he wants. Sometimes a director needs help. I’ve made wonderful films with directors who have never been in a film studio in their lives – they don’t have to know everything.

Freddy Francis

I don’t really know. It’s part of my whole person. Like you ask guys how they choose their girlfriends and they may say “I just like redheads” – but it’s very likely an oversimplification. So I think I choose what I do because of inner voices – I have a whole rationale to tell you about my conscious beliefs and my obvious political bent and so forth… but I don’t think that’s truly why I choose what I do.

Haskell Wexler

When I meet a director, I try to first talk about emotions and what the story means for the director. That’s why earlier I said that what I want from a director is passion; I want to do projects that are important to the director. Because then it’s personal and it matters.

Every decision about a movie, about cinematography, about light, about camera placement, is emotionally important. And after all, what matters in life, I think, is what you feel. So movies are represented emotions. I try to put those emotions into images. For me, that’s the main approach.

Rodrigo Prieto

It’s a combination of things. It does start with the script. If I really don’t like the subject matter of a script, then that’s it and I won’t do it. But if I like the script and I like the idea of working with a particular director, then I start considering what the visual potential of it is. So it is a combination of three things.

It has to be a story I want to do; a director whose work I like or who I would like to work with for the first time; and the visual potential of the picture. Also it has to do with whether I feel I can get some satisfaction out of doing that particular film. I don’t and I can’t do pictures that I really don’t care about. I can’t do a picture unless I really care.

Billy Williams

All the films I have photographed I was pretty excited about. There are a couple of exceptions: I did a couple of pictures where I was excited about the script but when I started to work on it I was not excited by the director. I want to have fun when I’m making a movie. It’s hard enough work to begin with, so if you don’t enjoy it, why are you shooting it? You want to have fun with and talk to the director and do things together.

Vilmos Zsigmond

Preparation and Pre-Production

I think pre-production time is extremely important and I just don’t walk into a film two weeks before the start of shooting and have a couple of vague meetings with the director.

I like to see a lot of films with the director and talk about style, to go through the script sequence by sequence and, in the case of Schrader, shot by shot, essentially storyboarding what we want to do. It may change once we get on set and we see that the scene lays out quite differently.

John Bailey

I would say I spend most of my time getting into the head of the director – you know, having discussions, seeing locations, find out about the style of the film. I want to find out what he wants to do. Many times it’s difficult to find out because maybe the director himself doesn’t know exactly what he wants. But at least you can get as close to it as you can.

You want to get as much information as the director has in his head at that time. If you do that during the preparation stage than you’ve won half the game, because at least then you’re going to be in sync with them.

Vilmos Zsigmond

…You can sit down and discuss how to shoot a film with him [director] long before you start it. So when the heat of battle occurs, you don’t have to stop then to reload the riffle. You can take your shot and it’ll be right.

Bill Butler

When Ingmar and I made Winter Light, which takes place in a church on a winter day in Sweden, we decided we should not see any shadow in it at all because there would be no logical shadow in that setting.

We sat for weeks in a church in north Sweden, looking at the light during the three hours between 11 and two o’clock. We saw that it changed a lot, and it helped him in writing the script because he always writes the moods. I asked the production designer to build a ceiling in the church so I wouldn’t have any possibility of putting up lights or backlighting. I had to start with bounced light and then after that I think I made every picture with bounced light. I really feel ill when I see a direct light coming into faces with its big nose shadow.

Sven Nykvist

The ideal way to work is to decide with the director whether the scene plays in one cut or three or four. If you lay all that out before you even set a camera, then everybody knows what they’re doing and where they’re going next. And that includes the performers because they’re more comfortable with that too. There’s no confusion that way.

Gordon Willis

I really don’t believe that you can just photograph a movie; you have to decide what it’s supposed to look like before you can make a decision on how to light it.

Gordon Willis

I feel my job as a cinematographer is to get in the directors head and see the world through his or her eyes. I try and help him or her to create a vision and a way of seeing a story. I try to find out what drives a director to do a particular story – what’s the hook in the story?

Once I start to realize how they want to see it, I speak with them broadly, in non-technical terms about various aesthetic choices – light and dark, color and no color, whether the camera should be moving or not. I try to help draw the story out of them in visual terms. That’s the fun of it.

Frederick Elmes

The script is a blueprint, but the film is a process. I think that’s really important. Sometimes people are not quite prepared for that process, so sometimes you have to help them go there. Usually, once you start to see what you’re doing, hopefully you understand where you can go.

Which is the opposite to, “Okay, it was shit. Spider-Man is not going to work today. Let’s put $100,000,000 into making it look better.” I think we have absolutely opposite attitudes to what’s filmmaking. We make the film we can. They buy the film they think they want.

I’m not sure which one… of course, they have the box office, but I think we have the integrity. It’s a little bit different.

Christopher Doyle

I’m actually better as an improver; that’s what I am. I’m better at working out concepts with directors. With me, a director can feel very secure if he has an idea about a movie, because when he’s tired, I haven’t forgotten the idea. And when I’m tired, I expect the same thing from him.

Gordon Willis

Citizen Kane is by no means a conventional, run-of-the-mill movie. Its keynote is realism. As we worked together over the script and the final, pre-production planning, both Welles and I felt this, and felt that if it was possible the picture should be brought to the screen in such a way that the audience would feel it was looking at reality, rather than merely at a movie.

Gregg Toland

Visual Storytelling

My opinion of a well-photographed film is one where you look at it, and come out, and forget that you’ve looked at a moving picture. You forget that you’ve seen any photography. Then you’ve succeeded. If they all come out talking about “Oh, that beautiful scenic thing here,” I think you’ve killed the picture. A good picture, as we all know, starts with a story. The next thing is to tell that story pictorially. And the next thing is to put dialogue in it that doesn’t annoy people – just enough, and the way people talk. That’s my opinion of a moving picture.

Arthur Miller

Good storytelling. I always said that you could photograph a good story badly and it wouldn’t matter, but you can shoot a bad story well and it’s not going to help the story at all. It’s not. But you get the two together, and it’s great.

Gordon Willis

Pretty photography is easy: it’s really the easiest thing in the world. But photography that rounds a picture off, top to bottom, and holds the content together is really the most beautiful.

That means it can be visually very beautiful: it can also be pedestrian in certain ways because that is more appropriate to the story. You try not to put the photography in front of the story: you try and make it part of the story. It’s when you step outside of the picture that you’ve made a mistake.

Gordon Willis

You don’t always have to provide beautiful lighting, I often think ugly lighting and ugly composition tells the story much better than the perfect light. Sometimes a brightly front-lit image may be much more powerful than a silhouette. It all depends on the story.

You can’t really preconceive certain visual metaphors, because then the symbol really isn’t a symbol anymore – it’s more of a gimmick. What’s great about cinematography is that you work from your instincts and people later see your work and come up with [an analysis] that you didn’t even realize, but which may make perfect sense.

Janusz Kamiński

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

James Wong Howe

On commercials, you have thirty seconds to get the audience’s attention, so the visuals should be as powerful and memorable as possible. On a feature, you have to use photography to tell a story that’s going to last two hours.

If the visuals get too strong, you start to assault the senses of the audience, and it becomes very difficult for them to get into the story. So I think the photography of a feature should be restrained; its sole purpose should be to support the story.

Owen Roizman

Usually, if you notice good cinematography, then the cinematographer’s failing. I try to make light feel like it’s always motivated and natural in some way and hope that the lighting goes unnoticed.

Rachel Morrison

I love to work with symbolism, because it’s very strong visually.

Conrad Hall

Of course, the photography has to suit the individual picture you’re doing. If you had perfection in every shot, you’d lose the story, and besides, the photography wouldn’t mean anything – but if you had one or two great shots, say one at the beginning, a high point in the middle, and one at the end, those shots would stay in people’s minds. But the photography always has to be appropriate for the story. I’d sacrifice photography anytime for the sake of the story.

Lucian Ballad

You work in metaphors through light and composition, and the worst thing for me is to see a movie that doesn’t have that. You see a cinematographer’s work and there are no visual metaphors, or they are so afraid to create a style that it just becomes this nothing.

It’s a big palette, the movie screen. I dare to compare myself to painters, but I just have a bigger canvas to adapt to. If you don’t like my painting, don’t see the movie, you know?

Janusz Kamiński

Naturally, the cameraman studies the script. His main responsibility is to photograph the actors, action and background, by means of the moving camera, composition, and lighting – expressing the story in terms of the camera.

I believe in a minimum of camera movement and angles that do not violate sense but contribute intrinsically to the dramatic effect desired.

“Unseen” photography does not at all mean pedestrian photography; in its own terms it should express emotion, and that emotion, according to the story, may be light, somber, sinister, dramatic, tragic, quiet.

Within this frame there may be “terrific shots,” but there should be none outside it for mere effect. Photography must be integrated with the story.

James Wong Howe

Composition Quotes

If a shot lasts five seconds, the audience must see clearly in that five seconds what the picture is about. You have to see the actors right away, but at the same time you have to light the mood. Composition is really important in creating the mood: it also helps to sort out what you want the eye to see and in what order.

Vilmos Zsigmond

People confuse ‘pretty’ with good cinematography.

Roger Deakins

You see a lot of films where they’re so beautiful, but you really tend to forget what the story’s about. If you get totally captivated by an image, but you forget what the drama is within it then I think you’ve gone a step too far.

Dean Semler

The photography is a very large contribution. It just can’t look like a large contribution.

Gordon Willis

Images, not words, capture feelings in faces and atmosphere.

Sven Nykvist

The shot has to fit into the overall visual design of a film to have impact.

John Toll

The young filmmakers, God bless them, all want to do the greatest camera shot that’s ever been done, regardless of what it has to do with the picture.

William Fraker

First of all, the composition has to tell the story and create the mood. If there are a lot of elements in the composition besides the subject, you may need to lead the eye to the subject. You can do that with light. You can create certain selectivity within the composition with the lighting or as an element of the composition. A lot of composition is just plain feel – how you feel.

Jordan Cronenwerth

The most important thing is it [the composition] should be clear. In talking about composition you’re basically talking about long shots, I think. Of course, you have to compose close-ups also but that’s more like framing. Composition is very important when you have a big shot.

Film is a moving image and it has a certain time element to it. If the editor is cutting a long shot so that it lasts five seconds on the screen, that audience must clearly see, in that five seconds, what that picture is about.

Vilmos Zsigmond

Cinema is not an individual art. It takes many people to make a movie. There is a common intelligence. There is no doubt that the cinema is a language of images, and images are revealed and concealed by light and shadows. Cinema is never reality; as in painting or photography, you make decisions about what to show the audience with the use of space and movement and colors so you are superimposing your interpretation.

Vittorio Storaro

The edges of the frame are often more interesting than the center.

Luciano Tovoli

There is a kind of beauty in imperfection.

Conrad Hall

Nothing’s perfect… and it’s in the imperfection there is possibility.

Christopher Doyle

Contrast is what makes photography interesting.

Conrad Hall

It’s important not to confuse visual clichés with artistic photography. If a choice had to be made, I would much rather shoot a good picture than a good-looking picture.

Robert Richardson

There’s nothing worse than an ostentatious shot. Or some lighting that draws attention to itself, and you might go, ‘Oh, wow, that’s spectacular.’ Or that spectacular shot, a big crane move, or something.

Roger Deakins

Cinematography and Use of Color

I knew in theory that you had to use backlight to separate [elements in the frame], and that you only had tones to work with. But I found that it was actually liberating to shoot black-and-white because it’s inherently more abstract than color. It’s one step removed from the reality of the red tie and the blue shirt. You start one step from reality, and from there, you can do pretty much whatever you want.

Michael Chapman

I often say half-jokingly, and it does surprise people, that I think color film doesn’t exist. They always say, ‘what do you mean, it doesn’t exist? We see films in color all the time.’ Yes, but my point of view is that as far as color is concerned, cinema is way behind painting.

One day there will be filmmakers who will have a real view of color; they will express themselves cinematographically through color, and not merely in color. This concept isn’t accepted yet. What I mean is that there must be creative artists, directors, who have the eye of a painter. Until then, color cinema does not really exist.

Henri Alekan

… I think it’s wrong to think that because you have a lot of paint you’re going to get a good painting. You can have a wonderful painting with just one color. I mean, children can show you that in a child’s drawing. They’ll stick to particular colors and it looks wonderful. Picasso loved to do that.

John Alonzo

You’ve got to remember when you’re working in color it’s a burden. You’ve got to worry about: Are the clothes all the right color? Are the walls all the right color Are the sets the color. How do they look together? So, emotionally, you have to deal with it. Black and white you don’t. You’re working in shades of gray, so it’s a different deal. But it can be beautiful shades of gray, like in “Manhattan,” or it can be an ugly film-noir kind of thing. It’s a very expressive form of filmmaking.

Gordon Willis

There is no doubt that every color is a specific wavelength of energy that can represent or symbolize a specific time of life. The meanings of colors are universal, even if they have different meanings in different cultures. Even if the audience doesn’t see the meanings of different colors, they can feel them.

Vittorio Storaro

Camera Movement Quotes

My philosophy is, good camera movement happens when you’re not even aware of it. It just feels right. My approach has been to always let my instincts, the scene and what the actors are doing dictate whether or not the camera should move.

Owen Roizman

Camera movements are used to lead the eye, to give people a feeling – an emotional one, a logical one, a dramatic one – just the way lighting and framing are.

Haskell Wexler

Camera movement’s great, but it’s got to be about exposition. You have to involve the audience visually, but to do that, you don’t need fancy movement and 360-degree dolly shots.

William A. Fraker

I really think music and movement – dance, you know – and literature inform my visuals. I think film is also based in dance. The relationship between me, the camera and the actor is always a dance.

Christopher Doyle

My feeling is if you watch movies that were shot in the ’30s or ’40s a two-shot of people talking to each other will last for the entire scene. Maybe at the end they’ll put one button on it, or a close-up, of somebody saying, “I love you,” something like that.

There are a lot of people who shoot movies today who say, “Well, this is going to be boring. We’re not doing anything.” No, what’s boring is the content, what they’re saying. If that’s boring, you can move this camera up and down all day long, it’s not going to make the movie any better. It’s the content has to not be boring.

I don’t think a camera should be an imposition on a scene. [If] the actor starts walking and talking for a block and a half, your obligation is to stay with that, hold the atmosphere together. When the scene stops, you stop. And if it’s necessary to put a cut on the end of it or the beginning of it, fine. A moving camera doesn’t build pace into a movie. It’s what’s happening on the screen that builds pace. Also, it’s how you cut a movie together. I’m a great believer in cutting and a great believer in relativity, going from big to small, bright to dark.

Gordon Willis

[On Thin Red Line] A lot of what the characters go through emotionally is unspoken, so it was necessary to convey those moments in a visual way. We wanted the camera to tell the story and yet somehow be part of the story — almost as if the audience was making the same journey as the characters.

John Toll

On ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien,’ we started exploring shots that are longer, where the camera is moving around the actors, and there are no cuts, and you feel like you’re there. I was able to shoot a movie like ‘Tree of Life’ because I had done ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien.’ The camera needed to capture that sense of freedom and joy and life you have when you’re young.

Emmanuel Lubezki

For Citizen Kane, direct cuts would be avoided as often as possible. Instead, we tried to plan action so that the camera could pan or dolly from one angle to another whenever this type of treatment was desirable. 

Greg Toland

When the camera begins to move, we are suddenly given the missing information as to shape and layout and size. The two-dimensional image acquires the illusion of three-dimensionality and we are carried across the divide of the screen, deeper and deeper into a world that is not contiguous to our own.

Garrett Brown

There’s a particular scene involving a confrontation between Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes. It’s a static shot all the way through, about two and a half or three minutes long. Then you push in to Mia, and she says, ‘Oh, my God. It’s alive, the baby’s alive.’ At that point, [director] Roman Polanski’s got the audience. It’s all about reserving the movement for the moment when you want to make a story point.

William Fraker

Somebody will say, ‘Let’s move the camera,’ [speaking of the type of director who came of age after 1980]. ‘Okay, why do you want to move it?’ ‘I don’t know, let’s just move it.’ Well, that doesn’t make sense to me. I usually like to hear a reason, or feel a reason.

Owen Roizman

Lens Selection Cinematography Quotes

A good lens and a camera is all I need.

Sven Nykvist

I think the wide lenses allow you to make the movie very immersive and that was one of our main ideas: to engage the audience in a very immersive way. The movie wanted to be visceral, so it allows us to get very close to the actors but still see the environment surrounding them. They are always connected to the environment.

Emmanuel Lubezki

I love 10:1 zooms because I can find just the right angle I want, and I can even change that angle, especially while doing tracking shots. I never used a fixed lens for that because I wanted the flexibility to alter my angle to follow the performance or the composition. Of course, that meant having another assistant, but it worked for me!

Gilbert Taylor

Cinematography is more than a camera, whether that camera is a Red an Alexa or a Bolex. There is a little more to it that resolution, colour depth, latitude, grain structure, lens aberration etc. etc. etc. The lenses use for ‘Citizen Kane’ were in no way as good as a Primo or a Master Prime and the grain structure in that film is, frankly, all over the place. But the cinematography? Well, you tell me…

Roger Deakins

I like using prime lenses because it forces you to move the camera and think about where the camera needs to be.

Roger Deakins

The choice of lens is of incredible importance. Because, with a choice of lens, you can change reality, you can change perspective and even the relationship of people to each other. Your choice of lens has to relate very strongly to the dramatic content. It cannot be an arbitrary choice.

Laszlo Kovacs

I’ve used a Dior net stretched across the frame on just about every film I’ve shot in the last six or seven years. I find most lenses to be too sharp and contrasty, so I often use the stocking over the frame to soften the image a bit.

Janusz Kamiński

It’s important to remember that visual consistency is essential – you can’t suddenly start using very long lenses if you’ve been using wide lenses (unless, of course, you want the jarring effect this creates). At the same time it can become monotonous if you don’t occasionally temper that consistency.

Janusz Kamiński

Zooms are unbelievably handy. You might have Nick Nolte screaming down the lens and forgetting where the hell he is, what country he’s in, let alone what mark he’s supposed to be on. So to give yourself the latitude there, the director will be grateful forever if you manage to get that performance.

If you don’t get it because you were frightened to do something… If you do it again, you might never get that same performance.

Dean Semler

[Gilbert Taylor] mostly used reflected light bounced off the ceiling or walls, and never consulted a light meter. As the rushes were shown, however, he possessed such an unerring eye that his exposures were invariably perfect. We differed on only one point: Gil disliked a wide-angle lens for close-ups of Catherine, a device I needed in order to convey Carol’s mental disintegration. ‘I hate doing this to a beautiful woman,’ he used to mutter.

Roman Polanski

Cinematography Lighting Quotes

Lighting strives to bring out the following values:

1. Orientation – to enable the audience to see where the story is taking place.
2. Mood or feeling (season of year and time of day).
3. Pictorial beauty, aesthetic pleasure.
4. Depth, perspective, third dimensional illusion.

John Alton

I think the most important thing about cinematography is lighting. That’s how you create the mood that matches the story. The ability to light artistically is a gift from the gods. If you have the ability, you shouldn’t waste it. You should be looking for ways to improve and grow.

Vilmos Zsigmond

If someone says to me, ‘I loved that shot, how did you light it?’, I’ll think they’ve lost the point. My explanation doesn’t mean a thing because there are 20 ways to light a shot and get the same result. Why you do something is far more important than how.

Freddie Francis

There are infinite shadings of light and shadows and colors… it’s an extraordinarily subtle language. Figuring out how to speak that language is a lifetime job.

Conrad Hall

Manipulating shadows and tonality is like writing music or a poem.

Conrad Hall

Lighting is so complex that it’s hard to quantify. It’s like playing piano. How did I do that? What did my fingers do? What made me think about where they should go?

I like to equate cinema to music. I’m performing a musical composition when lighting a scene. There are crescendos, allegros and pizzicatos. The visual language is an undulating language, and, like music, it has to have its peaks and valleys.

You can’t just photograph everything beautifully; otherwise. how would you get the gasps if you had nothing but gasps?

You can only get a gasp because the audience hasn’t been paying attention to anything but the story and the actors. Then suddenly, there’s something magical that grabs them. Those instances do something to the story and the individual watching, and it’s those rythms [in the visual construction] that are important.

Conrad Hall

I think the audience doesn’t know a movie’s lit, but they feel it. Because you’ve walked in a forest many times, or in a park, so you know how it looks. When you start lighting, subconsciously you know there is something that is absolutely wrong.

Emmanuel Lubezki

Other cameramen illuminated for exposure. They’d put a lot of light in it so the audience could see everything. I used light for mood. All my pictures looked different. That’s what made my name, that’s what set me apart. People asked for me. I gambled. In most cases, the studios objected. They had the idea that the audience should be able to see everything. But when I started making dark pictures, the audience saw there was a purpose to it.

John Alton

I think lighting is the only metaphor that works in film. We light the set in a way that supposedly is a correlative for a state of a character, or the nature of the scene, or the mood. It’s hopefully more than just the mood of what appears in the theatre, but it becomes a dialectic. There’s a sense in movies that things are not standing still the way they are in the theatre.

We are recreating a realistic space and trying to make something optically real even if it’s not naturalistic. We’re trying to create the illusion that time is advancing: it’s early morning, late afternoon, midnight. This infuses the story with some kind of meaning. I have a secret power that I can change the nature of this film by how I light it.

Robert Elswit

I’m learning more and more about lighting… But you have to be encouraged by the directors. They allow you make the choices that take the movies to a different level.

Directors can allow cinematographers to advance to another level, because we all have that capability in us. Some are so scared of taking risks that they won’t allow their cinematographers to try something new. But you can create such powerful and meaningful images by taking chances…

We’ve all got the ability to do groundbreaking work, and nothing is stopping us from using very experimental techniques in a major Hollywood movie if the subject matter allows it and the director is willing to go there.

Janusz Kamiński

The Lighting Process

I start with realism. My way of lighting and seeing is realistic. I don’t use imagination, I use research. I go to a location and see where the light falls normally and I just try and catch it as it is to reinforce it if it is insufficient; that’s on a natural set.

On an artificial set, I suppose that there is a sun outside the house and then I see how the light would come through the window and I reconstruct it. The source of light should always be justified. And when it’s night, my light simply comes from lampshades or any natural source light you can see in the frame.

That is my method. I haven’t invented that of course.

Nestor Almendros

For a cameraman, most of the time is lost in lighting. Well, very often I go to a place an I realize that is very nicely lit as it is. So what we do is choreograph the actors in relationship to the existing situation and it’s easier that way. I think that spending too much time in lighting, you end up being a mannerist. And that’s something I learned from a short experience I had with Roger Corman.

Nestor Almendros

I go back and forth about how I light scenes and what sort of units I use.

Sometimes I bounce light, and sometimes I project it through diffusion. Of course, it also depends on the film in question and the style of that film, as well as the practicality of a given technique for a certain location.

When you’re in a restricting location, you often end up bouncing light because you don’t have the space to project it through frames of diffusion.

Roger Deakins

In general, I like to make a light source look as if it’s really working, instead of overpowering it with an artificial source. I do use gag lights, but I like the sources themselves to be very bright within the scene.

Roger Deakins

Jimmy Wong Howe once told me: Start with the source as the premise, but if the source as the premise does not work and does not look right, then change the source, just make up a source.

And that is the best way because in the end result, you do not know how they are going to cut the picture. No director will start with the shot of a window and say, “Here is the light coming from this direction, “ and then cut to the actor. You may never see the window in the entire scene.

It is the overall character of the light direction that matters. The exact angle of light will never be scrutinized by the audience as long as it is not disorientating.

John Alonzo

If you look at my work, you’ll see that I almost always worked a little above the average key light because the use of bounced light served to fill the shadows a bit, just enough so that I could take my key up past the middle on the printer scale – if center was a 12, then I was at about a 14. That gave the image extra guts, so I was always generous with my exposures to get that extra contrast. I’d just blast everything with light.

Gilbert Taylor

It’s amazing to me how often I hear cinematographers say that they think shooting good-looking day exterior movies is all about sitting around and waiting for the right light to happen, and then just pointing your camera at it and shooting ‘pretty pictures.’

Doing good work in day exterior situations means that you must be able to make great images all day long, even when the light isn’t ideal for pretty pictures. You must make choices that will allow you to take advantage of natural light in existing conditions. Even when the light is ‘bad’ it is possible to do good work by making wise choices.

John Toll

The first thing I ask myself when I walk into a place of that kind, or of any kind, is: “What does it look like with the lights on that are there?”

Gordon Willis

During the actual production, I started out with a relatively simple form of overhead lighting, using a batten containing some nook lights that were bounced into these hanging skirts of bleached muslin. I later designed more sophisticated units that we also used on the subsequent Godfather films.

Gordon Willis

I establish a source. The position of light can change in various setups but the general character of the source will still look the same on the screen. You just need to enhance the source. Now, whether it needs more light or stronger light, it will still be the same in character.

Richard Kline

The approach we took [for the Exorcist] was ‘let’s not make it look like a horror picture, let’s try and make it look believable.’ The lighting I used was very realistic; I didn’t get fancy with it at all. Occasionally I enhanced something to make it look a little bit more dramatic, but I basically tried to stay true to the light sources and moods. The best way you could describe my style is that I like to create the proper mood to fit the story.

Owen Roizman

You create your own sources. When I walk onto any set, the main thing I discuss with the art director is where are the light sources. When an art director works with me, they know this so they do it without being asked. Without light sources of course, there is no lighting. And that’s boring.

There is nothing more boring to me than fluorescent overhead lighting in a supermarket, for example. So many times, I alter that reality. I’m usually using that overhead lighting but I will introduce some soft, side light which does not exist in a market. But nobody will question that because it’s soft. It will look real but interesting. It gives you more modeling, it gives you a better look.

Vilmos Zsigmond

Caravaggio was a great teacher for me. He painted by making a tiny hole in black paper over a window. He was working with a small and therefore very directional light source. I have often used this approach: a very directional primary light source, accompanied by secondary sources that are the offshoots from the primary, as well as reflections of the primary on surfaces, like walls.

Henri Alekan

It comes from painting. A single source light: the moon, the sun, a candle. Those are the three basic sources of light in our life. Now you can say, at night-time, it’s a shop window or a street light, or if you’re in the countryside it’s the moon. If there’s no moon, what do you do, you recreate something to suggest it’s the moon. Maybe through a lack of imagination or thinking, if there was no artificial light, what would it be. And that’s the departure point for what I do.

On Harry Potter, we were shooting in a hall, which was, I don’t know, 150 meters long by 80 meters wide. The principles of lighting remain the same: the small room has one source of light, a big window. If you want a big hall to have the same type of light, you add windows every ten meters to bring light through.

Michael Seresin

People ask, ‘What’s the mood of the picture?’ but I ask, ‘What’s the mood of the scene?’ I felt each scene deserved some thought as to its mood. I can’t think of a picture where I tried to light it exactly the same all the way through to keep the same mood, because I just didn’t feel it would work that way.

When I first became a cameraman, I was told that comedy should be bright, but after a couple of shows I threw that out the window because I didn’t believe it anymore. I think there’s a chance to do interesting things whether the picture is a comedy or a drama. I liked to play each scene for what it was.

Fred Koenekamp

I’ve always loved shooting at practical locations, You can’t move the walls, and the light comes from directions where there are windows and lamps. But light doesn’t always have to be motivated. It can be totally unrealistic and stylized if it fits the story.

You can analyze it, but it also has to feel right. The big question is whether you have the guts and heart to trust your intuition.

Janusz Kamiński

To give a more realistic feel on stages, I usually tend to work a bit sloppier. When there is a practical or window I want them to burn out. It gives the impression that we don’t have total control. If we did everything would be perfect and balanced.

Janusz Kamiński

I like to have a strong sense of light in a scene; I hate it when things are flatly lit. I’m the kind of Cinematographer who lights in such a way that when you walk on the set, you always know what the source of the light is.

Janusz Kamiński

We had it built onstage, of course, and lit primarily through the windows – Brutes, often fully spotted, just blasting in. A few hidden lamps on the floor bouncing into the ceiling completed the lighting. It was very extreme.

I shot much of the film [Repulsion] with a handheld Arriflex with a very wide lens and a tiny tobacco tin on the front fitted with a wee bulb to add a bit of fill, just enough to see Catherine Deneuve’s skin in the shadows until I moved in close.

Gilbert Taylor

I love backlight not just for the sake of glamorizing [the subject], but because the direction of the light can represent storytelling, I don’t do backlights and then also add key lights and all these things. If I do backlight, I want to see that backlight. That’s my style, and that’s the way we’ve done it in every single movie. You get criticism for that kind of lighting and you get prizes for that kind of lighting.

Janusz Kamiński

I love the idea that all the light is generated by a source within the film because it always plays a part in the story you are telling, The light itself is alive. It’s coming from someone and I think that a light that is coming from nowhere is a very scary thing, it needs to be kept to science fiction films or for a specific conceptual light for a story.

Darius Khondji

At night when we look into an illuminated room from the dark outside, we can see inside but cannot be seen ourselves. A similar situation exists in the motion picture theatre during a performance. We sit in the dark looking at a light screen; this gives a definite feeling of depth.

In order to continue this depth on the screen, the progression from dark to light must be followed up. The spot which should appear to be the most distant should be the lightest, and vice versa…

John Alton

I wanted to light the hotel so that it looked weird and mysterious, but, at the same time, wasn’t lit by an unknown source. So I imagined that the hotel would have floodlights on it, as most hotels do, especially at skiing resorts – at the same time lighting it up, but not making it look too pretty.

Then I also used smoke for the night exteriors, which again gave it a more mysterious look and softened the lights so that they weren’t so contrasty.

The result was a kind of glow that was in keeping with the film itself, and especially the attitude of the hotel, as well. Although I used smoke, the intention was not to produce the effect of fog, but of cloud.

John Alcott

Darkness

It’s not what you light – it’s what you DON’T light.

John Alton

There’s nothing that can ruin an atmosphere so easily as too much light.

Sven Nykvist

By not explaining everything with light, darkness gives my imagination an opening. Therefore, I sometimes choose to hold back light in areas of the frame, because I don’t want to explain the image that clearly. I want to make the audience imagine, and fish for what’s out there. It allows the audience to bring a little bit of themselves into the story.

Fred Elmes

Everything that is shadow, penumbra, and darkness suggests a dramatization of the subject. I need no further proof of this than the immense work of great painters like Rembrandt, who worked so much in shadows.

Henri Alekan

I had a philosophy, which I used more in Godfather II than in the first one, that I didn’t give a shit whether I saw their eyes or not. It seemed more appropriate not to see their eyes because of what was going on in their heads at certain moments.

I had a lot of trouble with that from traditionalists. I said: “That’s the way it is because I think it is appropriate at this moment. In another scene, you will see their eyes because it is appropriate to that moment..”

Gordon Willis

Natural Light and Simplicity

I’ve always been a natural light source type of cameraman – if one can put it that way. I think it’s exciting, actually, to see what illumination is provided by daylight and then try to create the effect.

John Alcott

When you put someone in front of a window, you’re getting the reflection from the blue sky and the clouds and the sun bouncing on the grass and in the room. You’re getting all these colors and a different quality of light. It’s very hard to go back to artificial light in the same movie. It’s like you’re setting a tone, and artificial light feels weird and awkward [after that].

Emmanuel Lubezki

Earlier, I made a lot of what I thought were beautiful shots with much backlighting and many effects, absolutely none of which were motivated by anything in the film at all. As soon as we had a painting on the wall, we thought it should have a glow around it. It was terrible and I can hardly stand to see my own films on television anymore. I look for two minutes and then I thank God that there is a word called simplicity.

Sven Nykvist

I like simplicity. I like using natural sources. I like images to look natural – as though somebody sitting in a room by a lamp is being lit by that lamp.

Roger Deakins

It is much easier to lead the audience to what you want to see [in B&W]. You either light the face, or you light the background. The eye naturally goes to the brightest object in the scene, rather then to something with bright colour. So it helps us to focus the audience more clearly on the story.

Janusz Kamiński

Lessons from the Set

I spent a lot of time on films taking things out. Art directors would get very cross with me. If something’s not going well, my impulse is to minimalize. The impulse of most people when something’s not going well is to add — too many colors, too many items on a screen, too many lights. If you’re not careful, you’re lighting the lighting.

Gordon Willis

I have the assistant keep a shot-to-shot log book which gives the f-stop, the filtration, whether there were any nets, the focial length of the lens etc.

A lot of times you can’t complete a sequence on a given day. Maybe you have to come back and finish it three weeks later but you want everything to match. The only way to really remember that clearly is to keep a log book.

Also you may have shot and wrapped the picture and then three months later the director decides he wants to pick up some extra shots or an additional sequence. If you don’t have the notes, then it’s very hard to match.

John Bailey

Much of what we did on Dead Men was archaeology; we dug out old arc lights and had them cleaned up and polished. Don [Scott] showed me techniques I didn’t know how to do, things that involved mirrors and pans of water, that they once did routinely. I don’t think anybody remembers how to do them anymore.

Michael Chapman

I’m not a great believer that you have to see an actor all the time on the screen. I believe that the scene has to be played properly, but sometimes it’s better not to see what is going on until a given point in the scene. Then you see something.

Gordon Willis

The day to day business of making movies is a matter of problem solving. You are constantly problem solving from the time you arrive on the set until you quit shooting in the evenings.

Bill Butler

Any work the cameraman can do with an art director is money in the bank, because basically an art director is giving you what to photograph. You will be asking for practicals, you two will be deciding where the windows are, whether certain walls are wild, whether ceilings are wild, how high the walls are, and what color they are painted.

Haskell Wexler

American films are overlit compared to European ones. I like close-ups shadowy, in profile – which they never do these days… What’s needed is simple symmetry, but everyone wants massive coverage these days because they don’t have enough confidence in their work and there are way too many cooks in the kitchen.

Gordon Willis

You can do the best photography in the world but if the actors are lousy, it will still be a lousy movie no matter how gorgeous it looks. And what good is that? To be good, a movie has to be well crafted on all levels.

Vilmos Zsigmond

One of the main differences was that Terry didn’t want me to read the script. He wanted me to approach the movies in a completely fresh way, and arrive to the sets and try to figure it out as I’m shooting. In that way the camera would be accidental, and unrehearsed, more like a memory.

What I did feel going from LA to Austin was that I felt excited to go to work the next day. It was incredibly exciting to not know what we were going to do, but knowing that we wanted to find something great. I didn’t know who the characters were and how they were related.

You start shooting though, and you start to understand their connections and the arcs of their stories. It was almost like watching the movie as you were shooting it.

Emmanuel Lubezki

American Directors shoot too much I think. It takes more time for the editing: you have too many choices, too many angles. With many American films, you feel they are cutting for no reason: its just because they have another shot of it.

The films tend to look alike because they all go through the same method of shooting – it comes out as if it were made by computers. A computer could actually make a movie: it could see how many camera positions you can have for a scene – ask the computer and it will tell you…

It just becomes a mechanism and has no personality. I believe in limitations and discipline.

Nestor Almendros

I saw one [a movie] the other night, The Out of Towners. This is my idea of entertainment. Fast-moving, pictorial, not overloaded with dialogue. You could see that picture without dialogue and you’d know what it was all about. This was the secret of John Ford’s pictures. You could run any of his pictures silent, and you’d still know what they were all about. Most pictures you can’t. So the whole secret is, to get down to one word, realism. Realism at its prettiest: a girl looking her best – not overdone, just looking her best, without makeup, looking that way. Then you’ve got photography.

Arthur Mller

I photographed fifty-eight feature films. The first third of those was a struggle because every film is different. I have got to cope with style, exterior, and interior problems. In those days we were switching from black and white to colour, so the first third were a sweat. Things settled down in the middle third because I knew the basic things about lighting. But you have got to do more than that eventually. It’s like advancing toward the enemy, then digging in before the next advance. The last third were the best. By then I felt free to do anything I wanted. I experimented and took chances. That is when it became very exciting.

Oswald Morris

At the end of my career, I have learned to simplify. I take montage more into account.

When I did Beauty and the Beast, I attached significant importance to the scenes which ultimately could have been simplified, because they would only last a few seconds after the editing. I told myself that the sensitivity of people is such that they will perceive each nuance that I wanted to add with the weight of lights and shadows.

At the beginning of my career, it seemed to me that everything was so important that I had to build the light with great application, as if it was a succession of paintings that one was going to examine. It wasn’t true though; the camera would fly by and I would spend three hours doing something that no one would have the time to perceive.

Henri Alekan

We realized that because you are faster, you are not necessarily worse in cinema; and because you take a long time to prepare something, it is not necessarily going to be better.

With every shot you take time somehow; some shots you take longer that with others. But, on the whole, you just have to go ahead and shoot and follow your intuition, Sometimes if you think too much you sort of lose the intuition and natural flow.

Nestor Almendros

Cinematography and Style Quotes

I’m sure I adapted [my technique] to what was good for comedy, but by and large, I don’t think you have to elaborately change your way of doing things.

They always say tragedy is a close-up and comedy is a long shot, and I think that’s true. You want the joker and the jokee to be in the frame at the same time. On comedies, I use a little more fill light; you tend to create a lit atmosphere where the performers can be at home, where they can move around and do their jokes without having to hit a precise mark.

Michael Chapman

If somebody says, “What style are you going to shoot this movie in?” my answer is, “The only style I have is the style that suits the script.” You keep a concept of what the basic script is all about. Comedy might be a bit brighter than a heavy drama, but I see many scenes in heavy drama where you want a visual relief.

Don McAlpine

Study every kind of film and art, and shoot your own video/film with your fellow students and contemporaries. That’s what I did when I was at film school and the mistakes I made and the lessons I learned then, I have never forgotten. I don’t believe that any one person can teach you how to shoot, but experience can.

Stephen Goldblatt

Style starts to emerge when reading the script. I always read the script three or four or five times. Generally, along the way, I discuss it with the director, and then start to come up with an overall visual concept that I seek for the film. It does not mean that this concept is ironclad. I think, the cameraman comes up with his way of seeing a movie. Then hopefully you are in sync with the director.

It is important to develop an idea about the story early enough, so at least you will find out whether you think the same way as the director. Otherwise you get yourself in a situation where you are at odds with each other the whole time.

Caleb Deschanel

Style really comes from taste. If you try something and you don’t like it, you had better abandon it because otherwise you’re going to find yourself in a rut you’ll never get out of. If you like it, then you have to perfect it and make it work for you. You also have to be able to vary it and apply it to the material at hand.

Owen Roizman

They taught us that a movie is only art if it has something important to say. It should be more than entertainment. It should have social value.

Vilmos Zsigmond

Style is not the goal for a cinematographer; the director is the one who should have a style. If I do have a style then it is the end result of everything I’ve mentioned, and not a starting place.

It’s true that you meet with the director and he tells you what the film means, and what he wants to see on screen. And you do think about and you do try and find the appropriate lighting. At the same time, when you find yourself on set, you have to do what you feel, because that’s the only thing you know how to do.

Phillipe Rousselot

Reality in movies is the reality of the story you’re telling, so it may not match the reality as we know it, but the reason there’s art is that it tries to bring some kind of understanding of all the suffering and joys and pain that we go through. Storytelling brings some value to it.

Caleb Deschanel

I’ve always thought the camera’s placement, movement and framing are the most important aspects of cinematography, but I tend to make those decisions instinctively rather than intellectually. If I have an idea for a shot or blocking, it’s usually something that just feels right to me; it’s not something I can necessarily intellectualize.

Roger Deakins

It would be wrong to take a painter and ask him to paint in a certain style from the past. It would be wrong to ask a Cinematographer to photograph a film in the same style as another picture because you can never do that. The same elements, the same history does not exist in the same way as it did previously. But you can reference past work in order to be more clear with yourself about where you want to go and what you want to do.

Vittorio Storaro

So much contemporary film and television is involved with getting people’s attention. The fascination with the details in the technology and tools has prevented many contemporary filmmakers from exploring better ways to impart visual drama.

Haskell Wexler

Movies are a craft, they’re not art. The art comes out of the craft. For example, you may have a great idea for a painting, but can you paint? If you say “no” then your idea s worthless because there’s no way for you to project that idea. It’s being able to execute the idea that sets you free.

Gordon Willis

I’m totally sure that the way in which the films are made – my own films and the films of Wong Kar-wai – are totally informed by literature, not by film. It’s not what they teach you in USC. It’s not three-part structure-never. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t work. But I think the films we make are jazz. The films we make are literary because it’s an engagement with how narrative can work.

Good guy, conflict, now they’re friends – which is 90% of American films. It’s the same shit. So aren’t we trying to create another experience or another ambiance or another engagement with the audience? Literature is, to me, music. Literature and music are basic sources. They give us this place to have an investment. You interpret as you wish. Music doesn’t explain itself; why should a film explain itself?

Christopher Doyle

Advice for Cinematographers

If I were young, I would spend a lot of my time learning the digital end of post-production. Why not? I’d love to get in there and paint; I’d love to make a movie that looks like Monet or Picasso. If you can get to the edge of abstraction, why not try it? It could be wonderful.

Michael Chapman

The advice I got the first day I worked in the film business: Always be five minutes early to work, never five minutes late. But more importantly, live on the edge when it comes to your photography – take risks. Put your ideas on film and fall down a few times; it will make you a great filmmaker.

Salvatore Totino

I encourage film students who are interested in cinematography to study sculpture, paintings, music, writing and other arts. Filmmaking consists of all the arts combined.

Students are always asking me for advice, and I tell them that they have to be enthusiastic, because it’s hard work. The only way to enjoy it is to be totally immersed. If you don’t get involved on that level, it could be a very miserable job. I only have one regret about my career: I’m sorry that we are not making silent movies any more. That is the purest art form I can imagine.

Vilmos Zsigmond

Learn the rules before you try to bend or break them. You need a foundation on which to build.

Douglas Slocombe

We can never go backwards. We should always move forward and look for ways to improve the art of making movies. I think of my career as a continuous search for balance and harmony between the opposing elemental forces of life: light and shadows, conscious and unconscious, matter and energy, men and women. Filmmaking is a lifelong journey.

Vittorio Storaro

The cinematographer is a storyteller, and his main job is to communicate with the director and get his ideas on the screen. I just always insist on having a wonderful operator and wonderful gaffer. I can tell them what I have in my mind and they’ll know what to do, with me just adding a few touches later.

Freddy Francis

Every era opens up new opportunities and new challenges, but the thing I found that worked for me all my life was being aware every minute of the day of the lighting conditions. Everyday when I worked onto a new film set, I went on with a completely open mind, and I treated every story in its own right. I never got bored, no matter how many times I had to work on the same set

Douglas Slocombe

Don’t forget that the director chooses you. He holds the keys to the project. As for continuing to work with some directors, sometimes I had to say no because I was already engaged on another project. That means the rhythm is interrupted, and sometimes they choose other directors of photography because of availability or because they prefer them.

Although this can sometimes be hurtful or upsetting, it is something I can understand. You always wonder if you did good work, etc. The only thing you can do in cases like these is to take your ego, put it in your pocket, and cover it with a handkerchief.

Philippe Rousselot

Over the last few years, several people have asked me what advice I would give a young cinematographer. I say, ‘Preparation.’ It starts with reading the script, knowing the script inside out. I would make notes in the script of how I felt, and one of the things I loved to do – and many directors didn’t want to do – was go through the script with the director and feel him out. Frank Schaffner was wonderful about this. We would sit together and probably have the assistant director join us so he would know ahead of time what was going on.

By the time we started shooting, there were no questions. I knew what he wanted and how we were going to approach that day’s work. With all the complexity of [that shoot] – England, Greece, North Africa and Spain – it’s amazing how smoothly Patton went. But that’s where preparation pays off.

Fred Koenekamp

Very few people find themselves becoming a Cinematographer after finishing film school. I always tell them it will take ten years. You have to put in a lot of work in those years. You have to sacrifice a lot. You cannot lead a terrific life, play around and then occasionally think about becoming a great cameraman. You have to work hard at it every day.

Vilmos Zsigmond

Whenever possible, shoot the films that you care about, because those are the ones where you’ll do the best work. You may not be paid much, or anything at all, but if you are committed to a film because you love the story, or feel you can learn from it, you’ll do your best work.

Ferderick Elmes

Learn your craft well and master the technical aspects. Being a director of photography is like being a painter sitting in front of a canvas. You may have this great vision of what you want to paint, but if you don’t know how to mix the colors or apply the brushstrokes, your painting will never amount to anything.

Once you’ve mastered the technical parts of the craft, you should then let it all happen – be creative, be flexible, try things, experiment. Don’t throw out the past and try to do something you think is going to be so much better. That’s all garbage, the trick is to learn from past experience and develop from there.

Owen Roizman

My best film is always my next film. I couldn’t make Chungking Express now, because of the way I live and drink I’ve forgotten how I did it. I don’t believe in film school or film theory. Just try and get in there and make the bloody film, do good work and be with people you love.

Christopher Doyle

You can’t learn how to make films. You gotta make mistakes and you have to appropriate the mistakes, and then you learn from those things. Then you have a voice.

Christopher Doyle

Filmmaking is about finding things out, it’s about examining, it’s about discovering. You should approach your work in the same way that a child discovers new aspects of the world.

I draw inspiration from absolutely everything around me, and what I observe from life. When you get to be a visual storyteller, you learn to watch how people behave and to see things – to study the light, to watch a field as you’re driving by it in a car. It’s like making movies 24 hours a day.

Conrad Hall

A handful of principles have defined my life as a cinematographer:

1. Be true to the script.
2. Be loyal to the director.
3. Be able to adapt and change one’s style.
4. Learn simplicity.

Sven Nykvist

Have a Favorite Cinematography Quote?

Which quotes are your favorite? Do you know of any other cinematography quotes that may be helpful for our readers? Feel free to share in the comments section below.

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Recommended Reading

American Cinematography (ASC)
British Cinematographer

Cinematography Books

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Masters of Light: Conversations with Contemporary Cinematographers
Reflections: Twenty-One Cinematographers at Work
Film Lighting: Talks with Hollywood’s Cinematographers and Gaffers
Painting With Light: John Alton

Related Quote Articles:

Quote Series: What Makes a Good Photograph?
Lessons from Master Painters
Quote Series: The Greatest Photography Quotes

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The visionary directors images are indelibly marked on pop-cultural unconscious: the ape throwing a bone in the air at the beginning of 2001: Space Odyssey, Alex and his droogs drinking milk at the Korova milk bar in Clockwork Orange and Jack Nicholson’s, “Heeeere’s Johnny” in The Shining.

In this article, I’ll be sharing 25 memorable Stanley Kubrick quotes and interview excerpts that all photographers can learn from. It doesn’t matter, whether you’re starting out on your photography journey or an advanced professional, these words of wisdom from Stanley Kubrick will give you pause for thought and help take your photography to the next level.

If you would like to learn more about Stanley Kubrick’s early career as a photographer at Look and his transition to movies, then check out our article: Stanley Kubrick: From 17-Year-Old Photography Prodigy to Master Film Director.

Looking for a masterclass in filmmaking? Check out our article: Filmmaking Quotes from the Masters of Cinema

Stanley Kubrick Quotes

On Visual Storytelling

Because of my background in photography, I have been able to quickly figure out the best visual way to photograph or represent a scene on the screen. But I never start thinking in terms of shots. I first begin thinking of the main intent of the film. After the actors rehearse the scene and achieve a level of reality and excitement, only then do I really look through the viewfinder and try to figure out the best way to put this on the screen.

Generally speaking, you can make almost any action or situation into an interesting shot, if it’s composed well and lit well. I’ve seen many films in which interesting camera angles and lighting effects are totally incongruous to the purpose of the scene. When the whole thing is over, you’ve seen a rather interestingly photographed movie that has no effect at all.

The making of any film, whatever the historical setting or the size of the sets, has to be approached in much the same way. You have to figure out what is going on in each scene and what’s the most interesting way to play it. With Spartacus, whether a scene had hundreds of people in the background or whether it was against a wall, I thought of everything first as if there was nothing back there. Once it was rehearsed, we worked out the background.

With very few exceptions, I think it is necessary to keep your staging ideas for the very last moment and to use the decor and the action that you ultimately choose as the basis of what you want to shoot. (…) The most important thing is to carefully rehearse a scene and make sure you have something interesting to film. It’s after that you can take care of the “how”. The “how” should always follow the “what”. It’s the content and the ideas that come first. After that, we can worry about how to film them. These staging ideas are almost never in a scenario.”

Stanley Kubrick Quotes on Style

If something is really happening on the screen, it isn’t crucial how it’s shot. Chaplin had such a simple cinematic style that it was almost like I Love Lucy, but you were always hypnotized by what was going on, unaware of the essentially non-cinematic style. He frequently used cheap sets, routine lighting and so forth, but he made great films. His films will probably last longer than anyone else’s. You could say that Chaplin was no style and all content. On the other hand, the opposite can be seen in Eisenstein’s films, who is all style and no content or, depending on how generous you want to be, little content.

Your own style, if you get a chance to make a film, is really a result of the way your mind works, imposed on the semi-controllable factors that exist at the time you start, both in terms of time, or the way the set looked, or how good the actors were that day. I don’t think it matters which films you look at.

Close attention to a single film teaches you a great deal. Film schools could be useful if you get a chance to lay your hands on a camera and see a little film equipment, but as far as film aesthetics are concerned, I think that they’re largely a waste of time. You’re generally hearing the views of somebody who rarely warrants listening to. You’re much better off taking films by great filmmakers and studying them very closely.

Related: The Best Cinematography Quotes

On Planning

I do a tremendous amount of planning and try to anticipate everything that is humanly possible to imagine prior to shooting the scene, but when the moment actually comes, it is always different.

Either you discover new ideas in the scene, or one of the actors by some aspect of his personality has changed something—or any one of a thousand things that fail to coincide with one’s preconceived notions of the scene. This is, of course, the most crucial time of a film. The actual shooting of a scene, once you know what you are going to do, is relatively simple. But it is here that the picture always hangs in the balance.

The problem, expressed perhaps a bit too simply, is to make sure that something happens worth putting on film. It is always tempting to think of how you’re going to film something before you know what it is you’re going to film, but it’s almost always a waste of time.

I’ve always been impressed reading that some directors sketch out the scenes and can actually find that it works. It may be some shortcoming of my screenplay, but I find that no matter how good it ever looks on paper, the minute you start in the actual set, with the actors, you’re terribly aware of not taking the fullest advantage of what’s possible if you actually stick to what you wrote.

I also found that thinking of shots, or thinking of the way to shoot a scene before you’ve actually rehearsed it and got it to the point where something is actually happening that is worth putting on film, will frequently prevent you from really getting into the deepest possible result of the scene.

Stanley Kubrick Quotes on Spontaneity

I think about a film almost continuously. I try to visualize it and I try to work out every conceivable variation of ideas which might exist with respect to the various scenes, but I have found that when you come down to the day the scene is going to be shot and you arrive on the location with the actors, having had the experience of already seeing some of the scenes shot, somehow it’s always different.

You find out that you have not really explored the scene to its fullest extent. You may have been thinking about it incorrectly, or you may simply not have discovered one of the variations which now in context with everything else that you have shot is simply better than anything you had previously thought of.

I think aesthetically recording spontaneous action, rather than carefully posing a picture, is the most valid and expressive use of photography.

The key part in shooting a film is not to necessarily execute what you had in mind but stay loose in case you have a better idea.

Any art form properly practiced involves a to and fro between conception and execution, the original intention being constantly modified as one tries to give it objective realization. In painting a picture this goes on between the artist and his canvas; in making a movie it goes on between people.

On Story, Reality, and Fiction

[Making movies] you’re not trying to capture reality; you’re trying to capture a photograph of reality.

Everything has already been done. Every story has been told every scene has been shot. It’s our job to do it one better.

Everything has changed, but the process of telling a story has not changed. It’s like cavemen sitting round the fire; somebody’s going to tell the story. Somebody is drawing on the wall. You’re communicating. You’re trying to learn and teach at the same time. You’re your own student and you’re your own teacher, but the process is of the communicating.

There is a very wide gulf between reality and fiction, and when one is looking at a film the experience is much closer to a dream than anything else. In this day-dream, if you like, one can explore ideas and situations which one is not able to do in reality.

The Importance of Emotion

In making a film, I start with an emotion, a feeling, a sense of a subject or a person or a situation. The theme and technique come as a result of the material passing, as it were, through myself and coming out of the projector lens. It seems to me that simply striving for a genuinely personal approach, whatever it may be, is the goal. Bergman and Fellini, for example, although perhaps as different in their outlook as possible, have achieved this, and I’m sure it is what gives their films an emotional involvement lacking in most work.

I don’t think writers, painters or filmmakers work because there is something they particularly want to say; there is something they feel. And they like the artistic form: they like words; either they like the smell of paint; or they like celluloid, photographic images and working with actors. I don’t think any real artist has ever been guided by any point of view didactic, even when he thought it was.

Stanley Kubrick Quotes on the Work

How could we possibly appreciate La Giocanda [the Mona Lisa] today if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas: “This lady is smiling slightly because she has rotten teeth” – or “because she’s hiding a secret from her lover”? It would shut off the viewers reality and shackle him to a “reality” other than his own. I don’t want this to happen to 2001.

One of the things I always find extremely difficult, when a picture’s finished, is when a writer or a film reviewer asks, ‘Now, what is it that you were trying to say in that picture?’ And without being thought too presumptuous for using this analogy, I like to remember what T. S. Eliot said to someone who had asked him – I believe it was The Waste Land – what he meant by the poem. He replied, ‘I meant what I said.’ If I could have said it any differently, I would have.

On Editing

When I’m editing, I’m only concerned with the questions of “Is it good or bad?”, “Is it necessary?”, “Can I get rid of it?”, “Does it work?” My identity changes to that of an editor. I am never concerned with how much difficulty there was to shoot something, how much it cost, and so forth. I look at the material with completely different eyes. I’m never troubled losing material. I cut everything to the bone. When you’re shooting, you want to make sure you don’t miss anything, and you cover it as fully as time and budget allow. When you’re editing, you want to get rid of everything that isn’t essential.

I breezed through Paths of Glory without being aware of many things I now see are mistakes. The more you learn about an art form the more difficult it becomes because you create harder rules for yourself.

Working with Actors (Subjects/or Models)

Yes, well, that was a device [playing music on the set] used, you know, by silent-film actors – they all had their own violinists, who would play for them during the takes, and even sort of direct them. And I think it’s probably the easiest way to produce an emotion… which is really the actor’s main problem – producing authentic emotion.

We play it before the take, and if the dialogue isn’t too important, during the take and then post-synchronize the dialogue – it’s amazing how quick this will work, and I mean making a movie is such a long, fragmented, dragging process, and you get into, say, about the ninth week, you’re getting up every morning at 6:30, not enough sleep, probably no breakfast, and then at 9:15, you have to do something you feel about as far from doing as you possibly can… So, it’s a matter of getting in the right mood – and music I’ve found is the best for this, and practically everyone can respond to some piece or other.

[Peter Sellers] was the only actor I knew who could really improvise. Improvisation is something useful in rehearsal to explore a role, but most actors when they improvise, stray into a repetitive hotchpotch which leads them down a dead end. While Sellars by contrast, even when he wasn’t on form after time fell into the spirit of a character and just took off. It was miraculous.

Advice for Photographers

Think up ideas for stories, go out and shoot them, and then send them into the magazines. I was lucky; I figured that out when I was young.

Kubrick Quotes Final Words

What’s your favorite Stanley Kubrick quote? Let us know in the comments section below.

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If you haven’t done so already, then check out our Kubrick article: Stanley Kubrick: From 17-Year-Old Photography Prodigy to Master Film Director. Viddy well, my friends. Viddy well.

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In June 1945, sixteen-year-old Stanley Kubrick published his first photograph. The photograph shows a depressed newspaper vendor framed by broadsheets and the headline announcing the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Between 1945 and 1950, the Bronx native took over 13,000 photographs for the magazine, nine hundred of which were published. During his time at Look, he progressed from apprentice to staff photographer in six months. He was the youngest photographer in the magazine’s history at just seventeen years old.

The best photographers – from Mary Ellen Mark to James Van Der Zee to Robert Capa – are artists who function both as directors and cutters: each shot is basically an entire movie tailored into a single frame. Kubrick is first and foremost a photographer, like them, and almost any still from his monochromatic movies tells a complete story.

Elvis Mitchell, Curator, Film Independent at LACMA

This is quite a long article, so make yourself a drink or grab a beer and sit back and enjoy the read. If you don’t have time to read the full article now (around 20 minutes), then bookmark the page and read it a section at a time. Alternatively, feel free to use the table of contents, to skip ahead to whatever section interests you.

Related: 25 Stanley Kubrick Quotes for Photographers

If you enjoy reading the article, then I would be grateful if you could share it, so other photographers and filmmakers like you can also benefit from the article.

Kubrick’s Photography Career

Starting Out

Kubrick’s father, a professional physician and amateur photographer introduced his son to photography at an early age. When Stanley was thirteen, his father bought him his first camera, a Graflex Pacemaker Speed Graphic. Equipped with his new camera, a young Stanley would shoot baseball games, school activities, and his neighborhood streets.

Stanley shared a passion for photography with his neighbor Marvin Traub, who had a darkroom in his bedroom. When they weren’t in the darkroom, they would be out taking pictures and thinking up photo assignments for themselves. The photographer Weegee whose photos for PM Daily would provide an early and significant influence on the two youngsters.

Although he wasn’t aware of it at the time, Kubrick started building toward his life work as a filmmaker during his early high-school years. While still a senior – and not quite seventeen – he sold his first photograph to Look magazine.

His First Published Photo

The day after President Franklin D. Roosevelt died, while on his way to school, Stanley noticed a newsagent vendor on 170^th street surrounded by headlines announcing the death of the president. He took a photo that changed his life.

Kubrick’s carefully framed photo captured the grief of the nation over the sudden death of the president. He later admitted privately to friends that he convinced the vendor to look more depressed than he was. This incident presages Kubrick’s method of working with actors on movie sets to get them to generate the right emotion for the shot.

By this time, he had his own darkroom at home. Instead of attending school that day, he developed his film and after seeing the negatives believed the image to be sellable. He took the image to the New York Daily News, then used the newspaper’s offer as leverage with Look. The magazine paid $25, which was $10 better than the newspaper.

Look used the picture as the final image in a series about the late president in the June 26, 1945 issue of the magazine. After his first photo was published in 1945, Kubrick worked as a freelance photographer for the magazine, whilst still attending high school.

From Apprentice to Staff Photographer

After graduating, Kubrick attended night courses at City College for a year, hoping to get a B average so he could transfer to a regular undergraduate course. At the same time, he continued to work for the magazine.

The picture editor at the time Helen O’Brien, said, “Stanley had the highest percentage of acceptances of any freelance photographer I’ve ever dealt with.” Seeing the potential in the young photographer, Look offered him a job as an apprentice photographer.

My parents wanted me to become a doctor, and I was supposed to go to medical school, but I was such a misfit in high school that when I graduated, I didn’t have the marks to get into college. But like almost everything else good that’s ever happened to me, by the sheerest stroke of luck, I had a very good friend at Look which gave me a job as a still photographer. After about six months, I was made a full-fledged staff photographer. My highest salary was $105 a week, but I did travel around the country, and I went to Europe and it was a great thing. I learned a lot about people and things.

Stanley Kubrick

First Assignments

Kubrick began his photography apprenticeship with Look in 1946. In his first couple of years on the job, Kubrick turned his camera on nightclubs, the street of New York, and sporting events. Capturing everyday life with a sophistication that belied his youthful years. Many of these themes would continue to inspire the filmmaker later in his creative life.

One of his first photo essays, A Short, Short in a Movie Balcony (April 1946), shows four candid photos of a young man making advances on the young woman sitting beside him in a cinema.

The photoshoot was set up – the cinema was closed – and the two subjects were Stanley’s friends. He took both of his friends aside separately to give them direction. He told the woman to let the man really have it. So, when he does get slapped in the face, both the slap and his shock reaction are real. Stanley already knew how to get what he wanted for the camera.

Another photo essay How People Look to the Monkeys (also in 1946) shows a monkey in a cage being watched by spectators. The monkey house had an indoor and outdoor area. While the monkeys were in the outdoor area, Kubrick stationed himself in the indoor area with his lens poking through the food slit so he could capture the monkeys with the spectators in the background. The caption cleverly reads: “A monkey watching people.”

Candid Subway Photos

While Stanley displayed a talent for staged photos, suggesting a fondness for fiction, he also developed various candid photo techniques in keeping with the magazine’s journalistic nature.

For a photo essay titled, Life and Love on a New York Subway in March 1947, Kubrick hid a shutter release switch in his pocket with the cable running down the sleeve of his jacket to his camera, which was concealed in a bag with a hole.

Here is an explanation from Kubrick about how he took these photographs:

I wanted to retain the mood of the subway, so I used natural light. People who ride the subway late at night are less inhibited than those who ride by day. Couples make love openly; drunks sleep on the floor and other unusual activities take place late at night.

To make pictures in the off-guard manner he wanted to, Kubrick rode the subway for two weeks. Half of his riding was done between midnight and six a.m. Regardless of what he saw he couldn’t shoot until the car stopped in a station because of the motion and vibration of the moving train. Often, just as he was ready to shoot, someone walked in front of the camera, or his subject left the train.

Kubrick finally did get his pictures, and no one but a subway guard seemed to mind. The guard demanded to know what was going on. Kubrick told him.

“Have you got permission?” the guard asked. “I’m from LOOK,” Kubrick answered.

“Yeah, sonny,” was the guard’s reply, “and I’m the society editor of the Daily Worker.”

For this series, Kubrick used a Contax and took the pictures at 1/8 second. The lack of light tripled the time necessary for development.

Excerpt from Camera Quiz Kid: Stan Kubrick, The Camera, October 1948

The Prizefighter

Towards the end of 1948, Kubrick was given another photo essay, this time on boxer Walter Cartier. For the story, the photographer followed Cartier between two fights, capturing him from the moment he woke up, right up to his fight.

The striking image that filled the entire first page of the seven-page sequence demonstrates how Kubrick had matured as a photographer.

Cartier sits on a bench, as he waits before his fight, with his gloved hands in his lap, leaning back against a cinder-block wall. The boxer gazes upward, with a single ceiling light casting part of his face in shadow. Shooting from his favored low angle, Kubrick makes Cartier look powerful, almost like a modern-day gladiator gathering strength before battle.

The photo story that followed is headed, The Day of the Fight and consisted of nineteen photos. The candid photos included Cartier repairing his nephew’s toy boat, hanging out at Staten Island beach and watching a ball game at Yankee stadium. The photo story closes with Cartier knocking out his opponent. The victorious Cartier is shown standing in the ring while his opponent lies on the canvas out for the count.

These photos were published with the title Prizefighter in the January 18, 1949 edition of the magazine. This was an ambitious essay for the young Kubrick and one that got his editor’s attention at Look.

Veteran Photographer

In 1949, Kubrick began working higher-profile assignments. By the end of the year, he had produced several character-centric photo essays about the lives of celebrities, showgirls, artists, athletes and the like.

In August 1950, Kubrick did a profile on the Hollywood actress, Faye Emerson. As part of the photo series, he photographed Emerson on interviews, laughing with reporters, juggling phone calls at the office and doing her hair in front of the mirror.

Other subjects include Leonard Bernstein, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, President Eisenhower, and Rocky Graziano. He even journeyed to Europe on assignment and took travel photographs for the magazine.

It was tremendous fun for me at that age but eventually, it began to wear thin, especially since my ultimate ambition had always been to make movies. The subject matter of my Look assignments was generally pretty dumb. I would do stories like: “Is an Athlete Stronger Than a Baby?”, photographing a college football player emulating the ‘cute’ positions an 18-month-old child would get into. Occasionally, I had a chance to do an interesting personality story. One of these was about Montgomery Clift, who was at the start of his brilliant career. Photography certainly gave me the first step up to movies. To make a film entirely by yourself, which initially I did, you may not have to know very much about anything else, but you must know about photography.

Stanley Kubrick

Learning from Experience

His short time as a photographer with Look taught a young Stanley the importance of story and how to form a narrative with his images. He also learned to work and collaborate with colleagues, whether writers, picture editors or managing editors to create concise features. These experiences along with learning how to light and understanding composition laid the foundations for his move to motion pictures.

I was at Look for four years until the age of 21. And of course, that would have been the period I’d have spent in college, and I think that what I learned and the practical experience, in every respect, including photography, in that four-year period exceeded what I could have learned in school.

Stanley Kubrick

Below is a video about Kubrick’s work as a photographer for Look.

Transitioning to Cinema

By 1950, Kubrick was ready to start the next chapter in his career and put all his savings into his first film project.

Day of the Fight

The director made the boxer Walter Cartier, the subject of his film, revisiting and improving on the photos published for Look in 1949. Like the photo essay, the 16-minute documentary short follows the boxer and his routine leading up to a big fight. Kubrick used his photos from Look to storyboard and work out framing and lighting for the documentary film.

The director took care of everything: subject, script, locations, photography, sound, and editing. The commentary was written by Robert Rein and read by Douglas Edwards. In one sequence the Cartier brothers walk towards us, and the camera moves backward. The reverse tracking shot is one of Kubrick’s most recognizable camera movements and is used in all his movies.

The Final Sequence

The film’s final sequence, a boxing match, the sound of which was recorded live, was shot using two 35mm Eyemo spring-loaded cameras (at the time used by war cameramen) loaded with 100ft of black-and-white film.

Kubrick operated a camera handheld on one side of the ring, whilst his friend, Alexander Singer stood on the other side, with his camera propped on a tripod. Both men were shooting 100ft reels of film, which required constant reloading. With two cameras, one camera could be shooting footage whilst the other was reloading film. If you watch the film, you can see Kubrick reloading his camera on the other side of the ring when Cartier knocks out his opponent.

The quality isn’t the best, but it’s still an interesting watch to see how the great filmmaker started on his journey. It’s been mentioned by a few people that Raging Bull may have been influenced by the film, whether that’s true or not, you’ll have to ask Scorsese. It’s also worth comparing the photo essay Kubrick did for Look with the film.

I’d had my job with Look since I was seventeen, and I’d always been interested in films, but it never actually occurred to me to make a film on my own until I had a talk with a friend from high school, Alex Singer, who wanted to be a director himself (and has subsequently become one) and had plans for a film version of the Iliad.

Alex was working as an office boy for The March of Time in those days, and he told me they spent forty thousand dollars making a one-reel documentary. A bit of simple calculation indicated that I could make a one-reel documentary for about fifteen hundred. That’s what gave me the financial confidence to make Day of the Fight.

I was rather optimistic about expenses; the film cost me thirty-nine hundred. I sold it to RKO-Pathe for four thousand dollars, a hundred-dollar profit. They told me that was the most they’d ever paid for a short. I then discovered that The March of Time itself was going out of business.

Stanley Kubrick

Becoming a Full-Time Filmmaker

Several months after The Day of the Fight (1950), Kubrick quit his job at Look to devote himself to filmmaking full-time. Kubrick’s time at Look allowed him to develop his talent for storytelling and hone his visual style. Looking at his photos today, you can see how Kubrick started to explore themes and imagery that he would later visit in his films.

Kubrick followed The Day of the Fight with two more short films: Flying Padre (1951) and The Seafarers (1953).

After I quit Look in 1950, I took a crack at films and made two documentaries, Day of the Fight, about prizefighter Walter Cartier, and The Flying Padre, a silly thing about a priest in the Southwest who flew to his isolated parishes in a small airplane. I did all the work on those two films, and all the work on my first two feature films, Fear and Desire and Killer’s Kiss. I was cameraman, director, editor, assistant editor, sound effects man – you name it, I did it. And it was invaluable experience, because being forced to do everything myself I gained a sound and comprehensive grasp of all the technical aspects of filmmaking.

He launched his legendary feature film career with his first narrative feature, the war film Fear and Desire (1953) and finished it with Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Kubrick’s Photography in Films

Probably no director in the history of cinema has involved themselves more deeply in the photographic process than Stanley Kubrick. The photography techniques he gained in the four years he worked for Look would play an important role throughout his career.

When a director dies, he becomes a photographer. Killer Kiss might prove that, when a director is born, a photographer doesn’t necessarily die.

Stanly Kubrick

If you want to see an example of Kubrick’s use of photography in his films, then watch Barry Lyndon (1975). In the film, Kubrick assembles perhaps the most beautiful sets of images ever printed on a single strip of celluloid. Each composition is like a painting and they link together like a wondrous mosaic. None of these images would have been possible if it wasn’t for Kubrick’s mastery of camera, composition and lighting.

Here’s what Martin Scorsese said about the film:

I’m not sure if I can say that I have a favorite Kubrick picture, but somehow, I keep coming back to Barry Lyndon. I think that’s because it’s such a profoundly emotional experience. The emotion is conveyed through the movement of the camera, the slowness of the pace, the way the characters move in relation to their surroundings. People didn’t get it when it came out. Many still don’t. Basically, in one exquisitely beautiful image after another, you’re watching the progress of a man as he moves from the purest innocence to the coldest sophistication, ending in absolute bitterness – and it’s all a matter of simple, elemental survival. It’s a terrifying film because all the candlelit beauty is nothing but a veil over the worst cruelty. But it’s real cruelty, the kind you see every day in polite society.

Martin Scorsese

Making Great Films

In his career, Kubrick directed just thirteen feature films, each one different from the others in both style and content. He has never made the same type of film twice. With every film, he starts over again.

Although Kubrick made fewer films than most filmmakers, the ones he did make rank highly on the lists of the greatest films of all-time with 2001: Space Odyssey topping many of them.

He just felt strongly that enough films are being made, he didn’t want to add to the pile of ‘just okay’ movies. That’s why it took him so very long to decide, to plan and prepare, to film and to edit. Fast he was not – neither was Vermeer – and then there were the films he prepared and abandoned.

You know so well how easy it is to make a film. To make a good film is a different matter, and a good film that enough people want to see is rather difficult. A great film is almost a miracle – like any great work of art, great painting, novel, symphony or building. And I dare to define greatness by the test of whether the work lasts and serves as a reference for future generations in order to have a look at our time.

Jan Harlan, The right-hand man, BFI Interview  

Stanley Kubrick didn’t just create films; he created entire worlds on film. Due to his incredible use of photography and understanding of storytelling, his motion pictures remain timeless and get better with every viewing.

Kubrick’s Last Days

In March 1999, just five days after screening the final cut of Eyes Wide Shut to Warner Brother executives and his two stars: Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Stanley Kubrick sadly passed away at the age of 70.

In an interview from 1968, Charlie Kohler asked Kubrick: You once said that if you hadn’t been a photographer at Look Magazine, you probably never would have gotten into films. What did you mean by that?

Well, first of all I was terribly unaware of everything else that you had to know about filmmaking, other than Podovkin’s Film Technique, and photography. Since I had read Podovkin and was a photographer, what could prevent me from making a movie? I could load the camera, shoot and I would have a movie. If I hadn’t been a photographer, I would have lacked the one essential ingredient you have to have to put anything on film, which is photography. Even though the first couple of films were bad, they were well photographed, and they had a good look about them, which did impress people.

Stanley Kubrick

This fan-made short documentary covers Kubrick’s photography career and early film work. The narration is taken from an interview that Kubrick did with Jeremy Bernstein in 1966. The recording is rare and provides an interesting insight into the mind of Kubrick before making his masterpieces 2001: Space Odyssey and The Shining.

Kubrick’s Photography Style

In his first six months as an apprentice photographer for Look, Kubrick would have been mentored by the magazines more experienced photographers. One of these mentors was Arthur Rothstein. In a 1978 interview, Rothstein said, “The greatest satisfaction an older photographer can have in his work is helping younger photographers achieve something. I helped Kubrick in his early days when he was staff photographer at Look.”

Photo Essays

According to Rothstein’s book, Photojournalism there was a six-stage photo-essay production process at the magazine. Photographers would become involved in the third stage of the process when assigned a story by their picture editor. Although photographers could pitch ideas, they were typically assigned photo stories based on their ability and preferences.

For the fourth stage of the process, the photographer and writer would go out on location to get the photos for the story.

Before heading out on assignment the photographer would discuss the assignment with the editor and be given information about the subject including a shooting script.

Look believed that it was important for writers to work with photographers to ensure they had complete knowledge of the story. Writers were encouraged to think in visual terms, and when preparing the script were told to include any information about the subject or the setting that could help the photographer capture the story.

The magazine wanted photographers to produce photo essays and narrative sequences, as opposed to isolated expressive pictures. Departures from the script would often occur, which required photographers to be flexible.

This approach to shooting would stick with Kubrick throughout his film career. In later interviews, he has commented on the importance of “being able to adjust for the final moment” and take advantage of an opportunity, even if means exposing weaknesses in the script.

Getting Coverage

In Rothstein’s book, he also mentions the importance of shooting coverage. Look focussed more on the photographs than the actual stories, and staff photographers including Kubrick learned that it was important to shoot freely to get more coverage than needed, to give the magazine’s art department a wide range of choices for story layouts. Another invaluable lesson that Kubrick would later use in his filmmaking.

While the editors at Look often encouraged simple composition and the use of natural light, which was typical of photojournalism of the time, Kubrick would often imitate the style of the Hollywood film noirs he admired.  While on assignments he would always try and add drama to the subject whenever he had a chance.

Real is good, interesting is better.

Stanley Kubrick

There are links between Kubrick’s photography work and his early filmmaking, with boxers and showgirls, which he photographed for the magazine, prominent in his first successful feature, Killer’s Kiss in 1955.

Kubrick and Weegee

The young Kubrick was an admirer of the tabloid photographer, Arthur Fellig, also known as Weegee, who would often catch New Yorker’s off-guard in his photo essays.

In his photo series, Life and love on the New York subway (March 1947), Kubrick would also catch his subjects unaware: a woman sleeping in her lovers arms, a woman nursing her baby, commuters passing time by reading the daily newspaper and a young man holding flowers above his head to prevent them from being crushed by fellow passengers.

In June 1947, Kubrick was sent by Look Magazine to photograph a behind the scenes look at the film The Naked City, which was inspired by Weegee’s 1945 photobook of the same name. They certainly met and knew each other. Kubrick’s early noir films Killer’s Kiss (1955) and The Killing (1956) have the same kind of look as Weegee’s gritty street style.

Kubrick later brought Weegee on as a set photographer for Dr. Strangelove (1964), despite the presence of two photographers already hired by the studio.

Peter Sellers has also credited Weegee as the direct inspiration for Dr. Strangelove’s voice. If you get a chance, then check out this Peter Seller’s interview where he talks about Weegee and coming up with the voice for the character.

Look Magazine

In the 40s and 50s, magazines were one of the major sources for news and entertainment. During this period, television was still in its infancy, so people read newspapers, listened to the radio, and would see newsreels at the movies to keep up to date with current affairs.

New York City was the home to America’s two leader pictorial magazines, Life and Look.

Look magazine, which was founded in 1937, was the biweekly rival to the weekly Life. Out of the two, Life tended to feature more wholesome content and cover more international events. Look sought “a lower, broader field” than Life and unlike their rivals, they rarely covered breaking news, due to the longer lag time between issues. The advantage of this is they could be more freewheeling in their search for the best stories.

During Kubrick’s time at Look, the magazine would sell on average 2.9 million copies per issue (figures for 1948). The magazine would peak at 7.75 million in 1969 with an ad revenue of over 80 million per year. In 1970, the magazine made a loss of $5 million, mainly due to television cutting into ad revenue, a slow economy and an increase in postal rates. In October 1971, Look published its final issue of the magazine. Circulation at the time was 6.5 million. Their rival Life magazine would also close the following year.

Photography in Later Life

Kubrick maintained the practice of using photos for storyboarding throughout his entire career. When shooting his early films, it was common for him to use a still camera to find his shots. In later films, he would use his director’s viewfinder instead, although he did continue to use still cameras for planning lighting and set design.

He would also use a Polaroid Pathfinder 110A for continuity on his pictures to check lighting and cameras exposures – this way he could see what the shot would look like before shooting the scene.

On Barry Lyndon, Kubrick famously used a 50mm f/0.7 Zeiss still-camera lens – which had originally been designed for NASA – mounted on his Mitchell BNC camera. The f/0.7 lens enabled him to shoot scenes by candlelight, using the fastest film available at the time: Kodak’s 5254, rated at 100 ISO. This super-fast lens captured rooms lit only by candlelight and natural light sources perfectly, creating a unique look, unlike any other film.

What Cameras Did Stanley Kubrick Use?

As mentioned before, Kubrick’s father bought him a Graflex Pacemaker Speed Graphic Camera when he was thirteen, this was later followed by a Kodak Monitor 620 when he was sixteen and then a Rolleiflex K2.

In 1948, Kubrick (19 at the time) gave an interview to a magazine called The Camera. In the article, titled Camera Quiz Kid: Stan Kubrick, Kubrick reveals that he uses a Rolleiflex Automat (6×6 Model RF 111A), a 4×5 Speed Graphic and a 35mm Contax II camera for his work. During this time, Kubrick also used a Leica IIIc.

The interview also revealed that when shooting interiors, Kubrick prefers natural light, but switches to flash when the dim light restricts the natural movement of the subject and it’s unavoidable.

And for a series of candid photographs shot mostly at night on the NYC subway, “Kubrick used a Contax…at 1/8 second. The lack of light tripled the time necessary for development.” But as Kubrick recalled, “I wanted to retain the mood of the subway, so I used natural light.” 

Kubrick continued to use various cameras throughout his life and would always be seen with a camera on-set. Here are the other cameras he used:

• Rolleiflex Automat 6×6 Model K4
• Rollei 35
• Pentax K (Tower 29)
• Hasselblad
• Nikon F
• Nikkormat FTn
• Nikon S2 (5cm F/1.4 and then with the 3.5cm F/1.8)
• Polaroid Pathfinder 110A
• Polaroid OneStep SX-70
• Subminiature Minox
• 35mm Widelux

Camera Buying Advice

Matthew Modine tells a story from the filming of Full Metal Jacket (1987). Aware of Kubrick’s background in photography, Modine showed up on the first day of shooting with a Rolleiflex, the same model Kubrick used during his early days with Look, hoping to spark conversation over a shared interest.

I was nervous. I was going to meet Stanley Kubrick. I had the camera around my neck, trying to impress him with it, and then one day he looked at me and said, “What are you doing with that old piece-of-shit camera?” And I said, “Well, it’s a Rolleiflex…” and he cut me off saying, “I know what it is.” He told me to get this new Minolta auto-focus, all the lenses I needed, he even told me what camera bag to buy.

I didn’t like the Minolta, but I loved the Rolleiflex because of the way people behaved in front of it. It was a dyslexic camera and in that way it kind of made the world make sense. Upside down and backwards. I kept that camera with me, when we went to Vietnam and at boot camp, inside my flak jacket and when we were filming, and I saw something interesting I would snap a picture. I had prints made and I gave them to the different actors I took pictures of. I gave pictures to Stanley. His criticisms about exposure and composition were invaluable. 

Matthew Modine

Kubrick never one for sentimentality or outdated tech, made him buy a Minolta 7000 instead, which Modine did and hated it.

Best Camera for the Job

What’s interesting is that the Rolleiflex is considered one of the best cameras ever made, and far superior to the Minolta that Kubrick suggested.

I think, like most people, Kubrick was just always looking at new technology and was excited to see what it could do. Kubrick loved cameras, as the following quote from The Stanley Kubrick Archives book demonstrates:

From the start I loved cameras. There is something almost sensuous about a beautiful piece of equipment.

There is no doubt he would be using both digital and film for photography and filmmaking today. Hollywood special effects supervisor, Dennis Muren once said in an interview that Stanley would always ask him about the progress of digital technology.

One of the behind the scenes photos from, Eye’s Wide Shut show Sydney Pollack looking at the back of his Sony Cyber-shot F3 digital camera while Kubrick watches him playing with his new toy. Kubrick also owned five IBM computers way back in 1983! There’s a funny clip of him trying to get head around MS-DOS in 1984, which you can watch here.  

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick also pre-envisioned the iPad. You see them in his film. More than 40 years before Steve Jobs would make them a reality. Samsung even challenged Apple’s patent claims by citing the tablet devices used by the astronauts in Kubrick’s film as “prior art”. So, if you want to create the next big thing, re-watch 2001 and see where your imagination takes you…

In the video below Tyler Knudsen (also known as Cinema Tyler) gives an overview of what cameras Kubrick used during his career. Please note that some of the cameras in the video are incorrectly identified. For a full list of Kubrick’s still cameras, please refer to our list above.

Other Stanley Kubrick Resources

Recommended Stanley Kubrick Books

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• The Stanley Kubrick Archives (Taschen, 2008) * My favorite book
• Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick (Taschen, 2018)
• Stanley Kubrick: A Biography by John Baxter (Harper Collins, 1998)
• Stanley Kubrick – A Life In Pictures (Little Brown, 2002)

Stanley Kubrick Photography Videos

The Kubrick Files Ep. 4 – Kubrick’s Photography

Here’s another brilliant video from Tyler that provides an excellent overview of Kubrick’s photography work. These video essays were written and produced by Tyler Knudsen (Cinema Tyler). Be sure to subscribe to his YouTube Channel for more great videos.

Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

Life in Pictures is probably the most definitive biography about Kubrick out there. This amazing documentary about the master film director covers his life from growing up in the Bronx to his last days making Eyes Wide Shut. Narrated by Tom Cruise, the documentary features interviews with Kubrick’s family, friends, collaborators, and cast including Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Malcolm McDowell, and Matthew Modine. A must watch for any fan of Kubrick (or serious filmmaker).

The Art of Stanley Kubrick

This biography on Stanley Kubrick was included on the Dr. Strangelove DVD. The quality isn’t the best, but if you want a brief overview of his early life and work then this is the video for you.  It features interviews with fellow filmmakers, actors, and collaborators.

More Stanley Kubrick Photographs

You can view more Stanley Kubrick photos at the Library of Congress and MCNY websites.

Fact Check

With every photographer article we produce, we strive to be accurate and fair. If you see something that doesn’t look right, then contact us and we’ll update the post.

If there is anything else you would like to add about Kubrick’s photography work then send us an email: hello(at)photogpedia.com

Link to Photogpedia

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The website was put together by photographers for photographers, so we can all learn from expert photographers (and filmmakers) like Stanley Kubrick. The more links we have to us, the easier it will be for others to find the website.

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Recommended Stanley Kubrick Links

Stanley Kubrick Archive
The Stanley Kubrick Exhibition

Kubrick’s Cinematography Links

You can learn a lot about photography by studying how the great filmmakers photographed their films. Check out these interviews with Kubrick’s cinematographers where they discuss everything from lens choice to lighting to camera movements.

Filming 2001: Space Odyssey, American Society of Cinematography
The Old Ultra-Violence Clockwork Orange, American Society of Cinematography
Photographing Barry Lyndon, Scraps from the Loft
Flashback Barry Lyndon, American Society of Cinematography
Behind the Cameras on the Shining, Scraps from the Loft
Flashback the Shining, American Society of Cinematography

Sources

The Stanley Kubrick Archives, London College of Communication

The Camera, Camera Quiz Kid: Stan Kubrick, October 1948
Stanley Kubrick Raps, Charlie Kohler, 1968
The Film Director as Superstar, Joseph Gelmis, 1970
Cowles Closing Look Magazine After 34 Years, NY Times, 1971
American Cinematographer, Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic collaborators recall the man, October 1999
Kubrick by Michael Herr, 2001
Looking Back on Stanley Kubrick, LACMA, 2013
The Right-Hand Man: Jan Harlan on Stanley Kubrick, BFI, 2013
The Killer Inside You: Matthew Modine Interview, Maxwell Kupper, 2013
Photojournalism, Arthur Rothstein, 1974
Stanley Kubrick: A Biography, John Baxter, 1998
Kubrick, Michel Ciment, 2001
Stanley Kubrick: Interviews, 2001
Stanley Kubrick – A Life In Pictures, Christiane Kubrick, 2002
The Stanley Kubrick Archives, 2008
Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine, Philippe Mather, 2013
Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side, Emilio D’Alessandro, 2016
Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick, 2018

Audio Interviews with Jeremy Bernstein, 1966

Stanley Kubrick – A Life In Pictures DVD, 2002
Kubrick Remembered Documentary, 2014

Special Thanks

Special thanks to the Stanley Kubrick Archive team based at the London College of Communication, who granted me permission to visit them on several occasions. I’m very fortunate to have this wonderful resource on my doorstep. I’m also extremely grateful to the Kubrick family, for making the archive available to the public.

Looking at scripts and studying Kubrick’s notes on story and character development has been an invaluable experience. I’ve also had the opportunity to see Mr. Kubrick’s negatives and photos from his early days at Look and his films. His publicity photos for The Shining – which were never used – are incredible, and just as good as any other photographer I have studied.

The post Stanley Kubrick: From 17-Year-Old Photography Prodigy to Master Film Director appeared first on Photogpedia.

Here, we’ve pulled together a list of our favorite photography-based movies, aimed at everyone from casual moviegoers to hardcore film buffs.

Whether you’re looking for thriller, suspense, drama, comedy or even horror, you’re guaranteed to find a great movie to watch below.

The Best Photography Movies

While there are many movies that feature photography, we’ve shortlisted the 50 we think every photographer should watch (or at least consider). Remotes at the ready…

Here’s our official list of photography movies ranked by their score (highest first) on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.

PHOTOGPEDIA Note: We have excluded all photography documentary films from this list, as we feel they deserve their own article. For documentary films, read our: Ultimate Photography Documentary List.

For information on how we rank the movies, please see notes at the bottom of the page.

Top 10 Photography Movies

1. Rear Window (1954)

Rear Window Ratings: IMDB: 8.4 – Rotten Tomatoes: 100%/9.5 – Metacritic: 100%/8.8 (Photogpedia Score: 9.2)

In Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Jimmy Stewart plays an adventure-seeking photographer who is temporarily laid up with a broken leg after injuring himself covering an automobile race for a life-like magazine.

To keep himself entertained, Stewart uses his cameras long-lens and binoculars to spy on his neighbors across the courtyard through his rear window.

With one more week left in his cast, he begins to suspect that one of his neighbors has murdered his wife and buried her in the flower bed. Slowly he draws his girlfriend (Grace Kelly) and nurse (Thelma Ritter) into his obsession and begins to sleuth out a case against the killer.

The setup is incredibly clever. Through Stewart, Hitchcock convinces us to identify with the peeper, to see what he sees. When Jeff believes that his neighbor might have killed his wife, we believe it too.

In Rear Window, Hitchcock tackles the topic of voyeurism head-on. Hitchcock understood that human beings are voyeurs by nature. When we watch a film, aren’t we looking through a window and watching people too? We look; they can’t look back. Heck, don’t some of us do the same with photography.

A thrilling watch even 66 years after it was made. At the heart of the film are the performances of Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly which are top-notch. Hitchcock himself has claimed that this is his most cinematic film. There’s a reason why this film is considered by many as one of the greatest ever made.

If you haven’t seen this film yet, then rent it and enjoy it… you won’t regret it.

2. Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now Ratings: IMDB: 8.4 – Rotten Tomatoes: 98%/9.4 – Metacritic: 94%/8.8 (Photogpedia Score: 9.0)

“Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

Okay, so it’s not about photography but it does feature one of the most iconic fictional photographers in movie history played by Dennis Hopper.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War movie, Apocalypse Now, tells the story of a Special Services officer, Captain Willard’s (Martin Sheen) journey upriver to track down and kill a rogue Green Berets officer, Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who’s been taken refuge in the Cambodian jungles.

The major part of the film follows Willard and his crew as they travel to a classified location in search of Kurtz. As they move upriver, they become more and more troubled and separated from reality. In time, Willard must face the horror of the world Kurtz has created.

The movie consists of a series of set-pieces. The most famous one is the assault on the village, opening with the helicopter loudspeakers blasting Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” at the terrified students and teachers. Incredible filmmaking.

Hooper delivers a short but memorable and, mostly improvised performance as a crazy photojournalist in the final third of the film.

Once you’ve watched this film, you’ll never forget it.

An epic in every way, it shames modern Hollywood’s timidity. To watch it is to feel lifted to the heights where the cinema can take you, but so rarely does.

If you’ve never watched this film, then add it to your playlist pronto and enjoy one of the best cinematic experiences you’ll likely ever have (for the best, watch 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

3. La Jetée (1962)

La Jetée Ratings: IMDB: 8.3 – Rotten Tomatoes: 92%/10 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 9.0)

What makes La Jetée so special (and the reason it’s on this list) is because the film is made up almost entirely of black and white still photographs accompanied by sound effects, music and voiceover narration.

This French short film by Chris Marker is only 27 minutes and challenges the traditional ideas of what constitutes cinema.

The film can quite hard to understand on first viewing, so here’s a quick breakdown of the story:

The film is about a man marked by an image of his childhood. It begins at an airport a few years before WW3, where we see a woman’s face at the end of the pier, followed by a reference to a death. Next, we’re in Paris in the aftermath of World War 3, where survivors rush to get underground to survive nuclear fall-out.

In the aftermath of the devastation, scientists look for a way to save humanity, and experiment with time travel, sending subjects back in time. The tests fail, until they find a man with a strong enough connection to a childhood memory – in this case, an image of a woman on a pier right before witnessing a murder. This memory allows him to slip easily into the past, and that time of his childhood.

Instead of working to save the future, he instead falls in love with the woman, and his trips back in time become romantic meetings between the two. 

When the time comes for the experiment to end, he isn’t ready to give up his newfound love, but his attachment to her has dangerous consequences and leads him to shocking revelations about his own past.

If you think the story sounds familiar, then you’ve probably seen Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys which was inspired by La Jetée.

Telling a Story Through Images

Watching the film nearly 60 years after its release is a revelatory experience because there isn’t anything else quite like it out there. Where was the last time you watched a movie told through still images and voice-over narration?

Movies as we know them are a trick. They do not technically show motion, but rather show a series of individual images shown in succession, normally at a rate of 24 frames per second to give the illusion of motion. By almost entirely removing image succession (or motion) from his film, Marker challenges the idea that cinema is solely the domain of the moving image.

There is only one scene in the film which contains motion (less than 2 seconds). During a sequence, we are presented with a series of quick transitions of the woman sleeping next to her lover as we hear birds in the background. Transfixed by the stills we are caught off-guard when the woman opens her eyes and looks directly at us through the lens. Coming during the series of stills, it is an incredibly powerful visual that will haunt you for many years.

If you’re wondering what camera Chris Marker used to make the film, he used a simple Pentax Spotmatic and quite a few rolls of film. When I studied the film a few years ago I worked out that he shot less than 400 photos for the entire 27-minute film.

4. The Cameraman (1928)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 8.1 – Rotten Tomatoes: 100%/9.4 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 8.9)

The Cameraman is a 1928 silent comedy film by Buster Keaton. In this fast-paced classic, tin-type portrait photographer Buster (Buster Keaton) falls in love with Sally who works as a secretary for the newsreel department at MGM.

Trying to win her affection, Buster abandons photography and pursues a career as a news cameraman with the inevitable catastrophic results.

The film starts slowly but gets better and better as the story moves along, leading up to a great finish that is worthy of Keaton’s comedy genius.

Visual humor does get much funnier than this. If you’ve seen any other Buster Keaton movies or any other silent comedies such as Chaplin’s, then you know that mayhem is likely to ensue at any moment.

In this film, Keaton is at the top of his game. He creates a string of wonderful gags, which are masterfully connected with a nice story and a beautiful romance with the outstanding silent movie star of the time, Marceline Day.

MGM used this film for many years as an example of a perfect comedy. The studio would get all their contracted directors and producers to watch it.

Keaton’s The Cameraman is one of his finest films. This was the first picture he made with MGM and is considered his last masterpiece. If you’ve never watched a silent movie before, then I recommend The Cameraman as a great place to start.

You can watch the film for free by clicking here or here

5. La Dolce Vita (1960)

La Dolce Vita Ratings: IMDB: 8.0 – Rotten Tomatoes: 97%/9.0 – Metacritic: 95%/8.5 (Photogpedia Score: 8.8)

Another film on the list that is considered by many as one the greatest of all-time. Federico Fellini’s 1960 film La Dolce Vita is as close to a perfect film as you can get, with maybe its only imperfection being the christening of the paparazzi.

The film follows restless journalist Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) for seven days as he drifts through life in Rome and the “sweet life” in search of love and happiness.

Marcello contends with his suicidal girlfriend, whilst also pursuing heiress Maddalena (Anouk Aimée) and movie star Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), embracing a hedonistic and carefree approach to living.

Told in a brilliant episodic structure, this fascinating three-hour character study combines art and box office in one remarkable film. This is existential filmmaking at its best. The cinematography is stunning, and the streets of Rome look breathtaking in black and white.

Who can also forget the iconic scene in the film when Marcello and actress Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) splash around together in the famous Trevi Fountain at dawn.

Paparazzo

Why’s it on the list? In the film, Walter Santesso plays an annoying, celebrity-hounding photographer nicknamed “Paparazzo.” If it wasn’t for this film the word paparazzi wouldn’t exist today and modern-day paparazzi would be called something else instead.

The film also influenced modern-day classics such as Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, Woody Allen’s Celebrity and Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

This is a film you’re either going to love or hate. Some people have called it a masterpiece, whilst others have called it boring and pretentious. One thing is for sure though, this is Fellini’s greatest film, and one of the most important films of the 1960s.

La Dolce Vita should be on the to watch list of all photographers today.

6. Memento (2000)

Memento Ratings: IMDB: 8.4 – Rotten Tomatoes: 92%/9.4 – Metacritic: 80%/8.9 (Photogpedia Score: 8.7)

Next up, we have Christopher Nolan’s brilliant thriller Memento. Although it’s not a film that is themed around photography, it does use photographs throughout to help advance the story.

This movie, about one man’s pursuit for vengeance, does everything a thriller is supposed to do: intrigues, involves and keeps you guessing. Nolan’s jigsaw puzzle of a movie grabs you and won’t let you go.

The stunning opener involves a murder and a Polaroid of the body. Then everything runs backwards. The polaroid slips back into the camera, a bullet returns to the gun barrel, and Leonard starts living in reverse.

Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a former insurance investigator, struggles to put his life back together after the rape and murder of his wife. The problem is he suffers from anterograde amnesia (loss of short-term memory) as a result of being beaten severely by the same man who killed his wife.

Incapable of retaining any new information, Leonard resorts to writing notes and taking Polaroids to keep track of what happens to him over a day.

Leonard is sure that the culprit still walks the streets, and becomes obsessed with taking revenge against the man who ruined his life, and sets out to find him.

The Twist Beginning

Through clever storytelling, Nolan keeps you guessing with every scene. As Memento is told in reverse, instead of a twist ending we get a twist beginning. His reverse action isn’t just a trick – it’s a way to put us inside Leonard’s head. Memento is a movie that demands we trust no one.

If you’re anything like me, you won’t catch all the nuances in this film, and the ending the first time you watch it. Repeat viewings are necessary.

7. Roman Holiday (1953)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 8 – Rotten Tomatoes: 98%/9.4 – Metacritic: 78%/8.4 (Photogpedia Score: 8.6)

William Wyler’s, Roman Holiday remains the gold standard for romantic comedy films. In this timeless classic, Audrey Hepburn makes her screen debut as Princess Ann in the female lead, alongside Gregory Peck.

Overwhelmed by her touring schedule, Princess Ann (Hepburn) takes off for a night while in Rome. When a sedative she was given by her doctor kicks in, she falls asleep on a street bench and is found by an American reporter, Joe Bradley (Peck), who reluctantly takes her back to his apartment for safety.

It isn’t until the next day when a press conference scheduled with the princess is canceled, does he realize the identity of his guest.

Knowing how much an exclusive scoop on the Princess is worth, Joe enlists the help of Irving, his photographer friend and embarks on a fun-seeking tour of Rome with the princess.

Joe hides that he’s a reporter and poses as a fertilizer salesman to get the inside scoop on the princess’s innermost desires, her views on world affairs, and her thoughts on fashion (which are worth the most, of course). While Joe’s snapper buddy Irving sneaks’ pictures of Ann smoking, riding a scooter and dancing. This task does nothing but help the humor of the film as he captures several fast-paced moments without bringing up even the slightest bit of suspicion.

The film features several wonderful scenes including Hepburn and Peck fooling around at the Mouth of Truth (Bocca della Verità).

Princess Audrey

It was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won three of them for best leading actress, best costume design and best screenplay.

Roman Holiday is a wonderful story, and Hepburn’s performance as the charming and beautiful Princess is what places this film amongst the very best.

8. Boyhood (2014)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 7.9 – Rotten Tomatoes: 97%/8 – Metacritic: 100%/7.6 (Photogpedia Score: 8.5)

Boyhood is an extraordinary landmark film as it was shot in 39 days and filmed over 12 years from 2002 to 2014, so the characters age naturally, which makes the movie more realistic.

The film follows the life of six-year-old Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from childhood to his teenage years and eventually graduating high school. The movie focuses on the effects of family arguments and domestic abuse. It also conveys how an individual can come of age and mature before time by witnessing too many emotionally painful events and constantly being on the move.

Photography plays a small but important role in the films final act and provides somewhat of a rewarding conclusion to this near three-hour family drama.

I think what appeals to most people with the film is the concept and incredible achievement of Linklater to shoot the film over twelve years.

But the problem is, it’s a film about nothing. I watched the film waiting for something to happen, but the only outrageous thing Mason did was smoke a cigarette at 15.

I think more than anything your enjoyment of the film comes down to how you relate to Mason’s story.

Reality or Fiction

Many people have praised this movie for its normality or for being close to real life. Watching paint dry and standing in the line in the supermarket is real life too but it doesn’t make for an entertaining movie.

For me, Boyhood felt like watching a home movie about someone I don’t know and don’t care about.

Except for Ethan Hawke in the role of Mason’s father, the acting also came across as lackluster and wooden. I guess that’s the risk you take when you cast young actors and stay with them for twelve years.

It’s got some great reviews, but these are mainly from critics. It’s also got some awful reviews. Like all films though, it’s subjective and comes down to your own taste.

Watch the film and make up your own mind – just don’t blame me if you fall asleep after twenty minutes.

9. Peeping Tom (1960)

Peeping Tom Ratings: IMDB: 7.7 – Rotten Tomatoes: 96%/8.5 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 8.4)

Few films have had as devastating an effect on the career of a renowned director as Peeping Tom had on Michael Powell.

In the 1950s, Powell was one of Britain’s most respected and beloved filmmakers, however, this all changed in 1960, with the release of Peeping Tom – a horror-thriller that marked a surprising change of direction for the director.

Warped by early childhood experiences at the hands of a sadistic father, an amateur filmmaker and a part-time taker of glamour pictures, Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) delights in murdering women while filming them. His desire to capture fear on film becomes derailed when he takes up with an innocent girl (Anna Massey) who lives downstairs.

Critics unanimously loathed the film and so scathing were the reviews that Powell found himself blacklisted and cast out into film wilderness.

Peeping Tom and Scorsese

The film was released the same year as Psycho, but it wasn’t until its re-release in 1979 (with the influence of Martin Scorsese) that it finally got the recognition it deserved.

Martin Scorsese, once remarked: “I have always felt that Peeping Tom and [Fellini’s] 8½ say everything that can be said about filmmaking, about the process of dealing with film, the objectivity and subjectivity of it and the confusion between the two. Peeping Tom shows the aggression of it, how the camera violates.”

Peeping Tom holds a coveted place in cinema history as the first film to tell the story from the killers’ point of view, as well as being the first real slasher film (Psycho was released a month later.) Peeping Tom may not be quite on the same level as Hitchcock’s masterpiece, but it may well be its equal in terms of influence.

Although not scary or shocking by today’s standards, it’s still a pretty disturbing psychological horror and an enjoyable watch for fans of the genre. Few films about voyeurism have been this good.

If you consider yourself a film buff, then Peeping Tom needs to be added to your list of films to watch.

10. Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 8.3 – Rotten Tomatoes: 91%/9.4 – Metacritic: 76%/7.3 (Photogpedia Score: 8.3)

Next on the list, we have Stanley Kubrick’s superbly made Vietnam War film, Full Metal Jacket.

The film is divided into two parts. The first 44 minutes revolves around the training of marines and shows the brutality of becoming a soldier, while the remaining 72 minutes focus on the actual battlefield and the terror of war.

In the first half of the film, the ruthless drill instructor, Hartman (Ermey) molds a group of recruits into combat-ready Marines. His message is simple: thinking is a vice and killing is a virtue. This chapter of the story mainly follows Joker (Modine) and Pyle as they battle through the training.

The second half of the film opens with a shot of a mini-skirted Vietnam hooker propositioning Joker (now a behind-the-lines Stars and Stripes reporter) and his photographer Rafterman. Seeking first-hand action to report on, Joker and Rafterman go out into the field and follow an infantry squad in Hue during the Tet Offensive.

Full Metal Jacket has plenty of great moments and memorable lines of dialogue. Ermey’s opening speech to his recruits is one of them. The footage on the Paris Island obstacle course is also powerful. Finally, you have the action sequence of the men chasing down the sniper in the film’s finale.

The Vision of Kubrick

Kubrick knew how to shoot a movie better than anybody else. If you pause the movie at any point, not only will the frame be visually stunning and perfectly composed, but it will also tell a story.

Stanley Kubrick’s incredible direction along with several unforgettable characters makes this a must-see film. This is one of the best Vietnam War films, rivaled only by Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.

Full Metal Jacket is a film that everyone should see at least once, although like other Kubrick films it gets better with every viewing. A remarkable movie and one that you’ll never forget.

11. The Killing Fields (1991)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 7.8 – Rotten Tomatoes: 93%/9.2 – Metacritic: 76% (Photogpedia Score: 8.2)

The Killing Fields is a 1984 biographical drama about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which is based on the real-life story of two journalists: American Sydney Schanberg and Cambodian Dith Pran.

In 1975, New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local journalist and interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff (John Malkovich). When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg arranges for Pran and his family to exit safely from the region. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story.

The Killing Fields is a powerful and compelling story that is well directed by Roland Joffé. There’s also a fascinating scene centered around the development of film that anyone who shoots film will enjoy.

12. City of God (2002)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 8.6 – Rotten Tomatoes: 90%/8 – Metacritic: 72%/7.4 (Photogpedia Score: 8.1)

City of God is a Brazilian thriller that’s loosely based on a semiautobiographical novel with the same name originally published in 1997. Part coming-of-age movie, part crime-drama, the film centers around two friends in the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s.

The main character of the story is Rocket, a budding press photographer who documents the drug-related violence of his neighborhood. His friend José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer who uses Rocket and his photos as a way to increase his fame as a turf war erupts with his rival.

City of God is a sweeping tale of how crime affects the poor population of Rio de Janeiro. Not an easy film to watch, but then again it shouldn’t be. This unique film was shot on location in Rio’s poorest neighborhoods. As a result, City of God plays more like a documentary than a movie.

This is also another film where audience opinion is divided. It’s one of those films that I found interesting to watch, but not something I would ever return to again.

13. Carol (2015)

Carol Ratings: IMDB: 7.2 – Rotten Tomatoes: 94%/7.4 – Metacritic: 95%/7.9 (Photogpedia Score: 8.1)

Based on the 1952 novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, Carol tells the story of a forbidden affair between Therese (Rooney Mara) an aspiring photographer, who works at a department store in Manhattan and an older woman, Carol (Cate Blanchett) who’s going through a difficult divorce.

While not a film for everyone, I did get caught up in the films deliberate pacing, characters, and story. The best thing about the film is the outstanding performances from the leading ladies especially Rooney Mara.

14. Salvador (1986)

Salvador Ratings: IMDB: 7.4 – Rotten Tomatoes: 88%/8.6 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 8.1)

American photojournalist Richard Boyle (James Woods) is unable to find work because of his penchant for booze and drugs, so he heads to El Salvador with his DJ friend Doctor Rock (James Belushi) to see if he can get a gig covering the country’s ongoing civil war. When the violence escalates, he decides it’s time to flee the country, but his relationship with an El Salvadorian woman complicates matters.

Although not really a film about photography, we do get some insight into what drives war photographers and there’s lots of chat about the iconic photographer Robert Capa.

There’s plenty of substance with the story, but Stone’s choice of shooting it like a documentary leaves the tone of the movie floundering. Regarded by many as one of Oliver Stone’s best movies, I think that says more about his lack of filmmaking ability rather than how good this film is.

15. Bridges of Madison County (1995)

Bridges of Madison County Ratings: IMDB: 7.6 – Rotten Tomatoes: 90%/8.7 – Metacritic: 66%/8.8 (Photogpedia Score: 8.1)

Based on the best-selling book by Robert James Waller Bridges, Madison County is a gentle drama about a housewife who meets a globetrotting photographer.

The story begins as photographer Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood) journeys to Madison County in the fall of 1965 to photograph its rustic covered bridges for National Geographic. Upon his arrival, he stops by an old farmhouse to ask directions. There he encounters housewife, Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep), whose husband and two children are out of town attending the Illinois State Fair. They then begin a four-day affair and a relationship that changes them both forever.

Bridges of Madison County is an old-fashioned love story that explores the theme of forbidden love. I’ve watched it several times now and it never gets old. From the wonderful performances of Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood to the beautiful cinematography and film score.

This only two criticisms I have are there are too many unnecessary dissolves in the film and I would have liked to have seen the photos from the photobook at the end of the film, apart from that though, Bridges of Madison County is an absolute treat from start to finish.

16. Everlasting Moments (2008)

Movie Moments: IMDB: 7.5 – Rotten Tomatoes: 90%/8.4 – Metacritic: 80%.7.4 (Photogpedia Score: 8.0)

Everlasting Moments is a Swedish drama set in the early 1900s based on the true story of Maria Lawson.

Maria wins a camera in a lottery but is far too busy working to think about photography. So, Maria tries to sell the camera to a local photographer, but he insists she tries it first and offers her some useful tips. It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the two and one that changes her life.

The film is slow-paced but beautifully shot. The problem with Everlasting Moments is it’s a little bit dull and comes across like a BBC period adaptation. However, if you’re a fan of good old-fashioned storytelling then you’ll find plenty to enjoy with the film.

17. Proof (1991)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 7.2 – Rotten Tomatoes: 94%/8 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 8.0)

Proof is an excellent Aussie black comedy that features terrific performances from both Hugo Weaving and Russell Crowe.

Martin (Hugo Weaving) a blind photographer with trust issues uses his camera to record places he visits, then asks people to describe them to him. His lack of trust, which runs so deep it has defined his entire life and personality, began in childhood.

His housekeeper, Celia (Genevieve Picot) is the only other person in his life and tries to seduce him. With no other way of getting his attention, she manipulates him. When Martin befriends Andy (Russel Crowe), a dishwasher at a restaurant with a talent for description, Celia becomes jealous.

Jocelyn Moorhouse uses the unusual premise of a blind photographer to explore issues of trust, friendship, obsession and the nature of truth and reality. Proof works because Moorehouse keeps the story simple and relies heavily on the obvious subtext to do her work for her.

18. Blow-Up (1966)

Blow Up Ratings: IMDB: 7.6 – Rotten Tomatoes: 87%/8.4 – Metacritic: 82%/7.0 (Photogpedia Score: 7.9)

Blow-Up was Michelangelo Antonioni’s first English language film and also his only box office hit. This 1960s film was inspired by the life of an actual “Swinging London” photographer, David Bailey and based on a story by Argentine novelist Julio Cortázar.

Thomas (David Hemmings), a London fashion photographer notices something in the background of one of the photos he has taken in the park one afternoon. Blowing up the negatives, he believes he has either photographed an attempted murder or an actual murder. The photos lead to a quest to match his notion of photographic truth to reality.

The last scene poses a profound and beautiful question about photography, the art of storytelling, and life itself. The film reminds us that even the latest technologies can mislead or betray us.

What’s often overlooked with this film is how well Antonioni used sound to create atmosphere. Antonioni liked to control the environment around him to tell his stories and this is demonstrated wonderfully in Blow-Up. Often in Antonioni’s films, a street corner will stay in a shot long after the characters have left the frame. It is as though the imprint of the story is still there and he lets us wait.

The film has lagging moments and is a bit rough in places by today’s standards, but if you look beyond that then you’ll find a treasure of a film that is beautifully shot and has some excellent performances. This is an entertaining movie and in my opinion, deserves to be much higher on this list.

19. The Omen (1976)

The Omen Ratings: IMDB: 7.5 – Rotten Tomatoes: 85%/8 – Metacritic: 62%/7.9 (Photogpedia Score: 7.6)

This horror classic features some of the most memorable and terrifying images you’ll ever see in a movie.

Gregory Peck stars as American diplomat Robert whose wife Katharine (Lee Remick) has just given birth to a stillborn child. Shortly after he is approached by a priest who suggests that they take a healthy newborn whose mother has just died in childbirth. Without telling his wife he agrees.

After the family moves to London, a sinister series of events start to occur. During Damien’s fifth birthday party, the family’s nanny hangs herself in front of everyone. In the background, a news photographer named Keith Jennings (David Warner) takes pictures.

As more people die, Robert begins to investigate Damien’s background and soon realizes his adopted son may be the devil incarnate.

The Omen is a suspenseful and terrifying take on the antichrist and is considered to be one of the greatest horror films of all time. This movie also has one of the most chilling background scores in the history of cinema.

The photographer character played brilliantly by David Warner plays an important role in the film.

20. Funny Face

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 7.0 – Rotten Tomatoes: 86%/8.1 – Metacritic: 7.3 (Photogpedia Score: 7.6)

Funny Face is a charming and breezy musical starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire.

In the film, Astaire plays fashion photographer Dick Avery who was based on the legendary Richard Avedon. In the search for an intellectual backdrop for his air-headed model, he commandeers a Greenwich Village bookstore much to the dismay of the store clerk Jo Stockton (Hepburn).

Later, when Dick examines the photos, he becomes fascinated by Jo’s unique look and her “funny face” as is Maggie Prescott, the editor of a leading fashion magazine. They offer Jo a modeling contract, which she reluctantly accepts only because it includes a free trip to Paris.

Once in France, Avery snaps more pictures of Jo against iconic Parisian backdrops. In the process, they fall for one another, only to find hurdles in their way.

For me, the musical numbers were far too frequent and over the top for my taste. There are only two scenes from Funny Face I would watch again: Audrey Hepburn dancing in the café and the photoshoot sequence in Paris (which is a must-watch for all photographers).

For fans of musicals and Audrey, Funny Face is a must-see. For those who want to see great photography in a movie, skip to ahead to the photoshoot scenes 57 minutes into the film.

Richard Avedon was hired by Paramount as a consultant for the film and took all the stills you see in the picture. The photo sequence in Paris landmarks has never been topped.

21. Under Fire (1983)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 7.0 – Rotten Tomatoes: 90%/6.1 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 7.5)

Under Fire is a political thriller about a seedy photojournalist, Price (Nick Nolte) during the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979. Price is joined by TV anchor, Grazier (Gene Hackman) and Cassidy (Joanna Cassidy) a radio reporter. The three reporters become involved in a romantic triangle as they chase down the story during the last days of the corrupt Somoza regime. The film’s story was inspired by the real-life murders of reporter Bill Stewart and his translator Juan Espinoza by National Guard forces.

22. The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)

The Year of Living Dangerously Ratings: IMDB: 7.1 – Rotten Tomatoes: 87%/7.7 – Metacritic: 65%/7.7 (Photogpedia Score: 7.5)

In this Australian romantic drama, Hamilton (Mel Gibson), a young wire service reporter tries to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia during the rule of President Sukarno in the ‘60s with the help of diminutive photographer Billy (Linda Hunt). As Jakarta sinks into disarray, Hamilton pursues a romance with British attaché Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver) who has two weeks left on her tour.

23 Closer (2004)

Closer Ratings: IMDB: 7.2 – Rotten Tomatoes: 68%/8.1 – Metacritic: 65%/8.8 (Photogpedia Score: 7.4)

Closer is a romantic drama about the intertwining relationships of two couples living in London. Anna a successful photographer (Julia Roberts) and a recent divorcee meets Dan (Jude Law), an aspiring novelist when she takes his picture. She becomes romantically involved with him and begins an affair that continues secretly even after her marriage to Larry (Clive Owen). Natalie Portman also features in the film as Alice, a waitress turned stripper.

Although there’s not a lot of photography, there is a couple of scenes where Anna is working in her studio. Also, watch out for the brilliant online chat exchange between the two men.

24. High Art (1998)

High Art Ratings: IMDB: 6.6 – Rotten Tomatoes: 73%/7.7 – Metacritic: 73%/8.6 (Photogpedia Score: 7.4)

An independent art-house film, High Art is about an intern (Radha Mitchell) at a photography magazine who falls for a drug-addicted photographer (Ally Sheedy). As their relationship develops, they both attempt to use the other to advance their careers. Despite excellent acting from the two female leads, the film is a little dull and comes across a bit too pretentious for my liking. Watch the trailer first and see whether it’s something that appeals to you.

25. Photographing Fairies (1997)

Photographing Fairies Ratings: IMDB: 6.8 – Rotten Tomatoes: 82%/7.4 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 7.3)

In Photographing Fairies, a recently widowed photographer makes his living disproving the authenticity of photographs of supernatural phenomena. When a woman shows him, a photograph taken by her daughters of fairies in her garden, the man declares the image genuine. He decides to investigate further and what he finds surprises him.

The film is based on a novel by Steve Szilagyi, which in turn was based on the true story of the Cottingley Fairies, in which two Yorkshire girls claimed they had played with and photographed fairies in their garden. 

Expert analysis of the negatives failed to disprove their claims, and even Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes creator) became convinced by the story – much to his embarrassment when the two women later admitted it was a hoax. It just goes to show that photo manipulation is nothing new.

25 More Photography Movies

26. The Serpent (2006)

The Serpent Ratings: IMDB: 6.5 – Rotten Tomatoes: 85%/6.9 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 7.1)

A French thriller based on the 1971 novel Plender by Ted Lewis, The Serpent tells the story of Vincent, an introverted fashion photographer in the middle of a difficult divorce. If things weren’t bad enough, an old friend sets him up with a prostitute in an attempt to blackmail him. It’s an okay thriller that starts well but loses its way halfway through. 

27. Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White (1989) 

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 7.1 – Rotten Tomatoes: N.A. – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 7.1)

Double Exposure is a made for TV biopic about Margaret Bourke-White, America’s first female war photojournalist and the first foreign photographer to take pictures of the Soviet five-year plan. She even provided the cover image for the first-ever issue of Life magazine. 

The film is structured around the story of Bourke-White’s career and her rocky relationship with her second husband. There’s not too much information about her early life or how she got started in photography, so the film feels a little incomplete. Farrah Fawcett gives a solid performance as Bourke-White though.

28. Eadweard (2015)

Eadweard Ratings: IMDB: 6.3 – Rotten Tomatoes: 7.9 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 7.1)

Eadweard is a Canadian drama about the turn of the century photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who famously took 12 still images of a horse galloping and combined them in a prototype film reel, to prove that all four feet leave the ground at the same time.

29. The Big Picture (2010)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 6.7 – Rotten Tomatoes: 86%/6.3 – Metacritic: 71%/6.5 (Photogpedia Score: 7.0)

The Big Picture is a French thriller adapted from Douglas Kennedy’s 1997 novel of the same name. After a successful lawyer accidentally kills his wife’s lover, a local photographer, he fakes his death and starts a new life on the coast taking up the dead man’s identity.

30. Shutter (2004)

Shutter Ratings: IMDB: 7.1 – Rotten Tomatoes: 58%/7.8 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 7.0)

After killing a young woman in a hit and run, Jane and her photographer boyfriend, Tun begin seeing a shadowy figure haunting the background of his photographs. Concerned that the anomaly is the vengeful spirit of the young woman, Jane does some research and soon discovers the woman was a classmate of Tun’s. As the haunting continues, Jane uncovers a shocking secret.

Be sure to watch the original Thai version of the film, not the crappy 2008 starring Joshua Jackson. I’ve watched both, and the original is much better.

31. Delirious (2006)

Delirious Ratings: IMDB: 6.5 – Rotten Tomatoes: 82%/5.7 – Metacritic: 68%/7.6 (Photogpedia Score: 6.9)

Steve Buscemi stars as a small-time neurotic celebrity photographer who takes a homeless wannabe actor and makes him his assistant. Their friendship begins to strain when his new assistant gets involved with a pop star.

What should be a fun satire on paparazzi and celebrity life, is let down by a poorly written script. Buscemi and Michael Pitt work well together but apart from that, this film doesn’t have much else going for it.

32. A Thousand Times Good Night (2013)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 7.1 – Rotten Tomatoes: 71%/6.5 – Metacritic: 67%/6.8 (Photogpedia Score: 6.9)

A Thousand Times Good Night is about a war-zone photojournalist (Juliet Binoche) whose obsession with reporting in dangerous places puts her at odds with her family. After a near-death experience on assignment, her husband gives her an ultimatum to give up her work or risk losing her family.

Although fictional, a lot of the material comes from the director Erik Poppe’s own experiences as a photojournalist in the ‘80s, covering conflicts in Asia, Central America, and Africa.

Binoche is wonderful as Rebecca, a woman divided by her love of her job and the love of her family. Unfortunately, the film is let down by awful writing and horrible pacing. Yeah, there are some nice shots in the film, but if the director spent more time focusing on the story and making the characters likable then this would be a much, much better movie. This film could have been so much more.

33. Kodachrome (2017)

Kodachrome Ratings: IMDB: 6.8 – Rotten Tomatoes: 71%/6.9 – Metacritic: 57%/7.5 (Photogpedia Score: 6.8)

Matt (Jason Sudeikis) a struggling music executive drives his estranged and dying father Benjamin (Ed Harris), a famous photojournalist cross country to deliver four old rolls of Kodachrome film to the last lab in the world that can develop them before it closes for good. Along with Ben’s nurse Zooey (Elizabeth Olsen), the three navigate a world-changing from analog to digital while trying to put the past behind them.

Kodachrome is based on the 2010 New York Times article For Kodachrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas by A.G. Sulzberger.

34. One Hour Photo (2002)

One Hour PhotoRatings: IMDB: 6.8 – Rotten Tomatoes: 81%/6.4 – Metacritic: 64%/5.2 (Photogpedia Score: 6.6)

This dark thriller features Robin Williams playing a lonely one-hour photo clerk who stalks a family whose pictures he regularly develops.

One Hour Photo is a very well-made thriller. Robin Williams is incredible as creepy Sy “the photo guy”. The thing that makes this movie so terrifying is that you know there are people like Sy out there.

35. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Ratings: IMDB: 7.3 – Rotten Tomatoes: 51%/7.1 – Metacritic: 54%/7.5 (Photogpedia Score: 6.6)

Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is a negative assets manager for Life Magazine. When he loses a vital negative needed for Life’s final issue, he sets off to find the photographer responsible, who could be anywhere in the world.

Mitty’s journey to find Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) turns into an adventure of a lifetime, and something more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.

36. Pecker (1998)

Pecker Ratings: IMDB: 6.3 – Rotten Tomatoes: 52%/6.4 – Metacritic: 66%/7.4 (Photogpedia Score: 6.4)

Sandwich Shop worker Pecker is obsessed with photography and snaps everything he sees around him.

One day he is discovered by a savvy art dealer from New York who views the youngster as a fresh talent worth entertaining. Never mind that his photographs are amateurish, grainy, and out-of-focus; they strike a chord with the New York’s artsy crowd.

As his success and fame grow, Pecker finds himself less welcome in his hometown and decides to turn the tables on the elitist art snobs of the city.

This is nothing more than a light-hearted comedy about the pretentiousness of fine-art photography. It features, two or three mildly amusing scenes in the first half of the movie, but overall there’s not much to hold the audience’s attention. The movie is also filled with cameos, the most notable one is Cindy Sherman. Plenty of people who have enjoyed this film, so it all comes down to taste.

37. Palermo Shooting (2008)

Palermo Shooting Ratings: IMDB: 6.2 – Rotten Tomatoes: 6.2 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 6.2)

Wim Wenders’ drama about a famous German photographer who narrowly avoids death in a road accident. Overworked and burnt out, he decides to go on a soul searching to Italy. In Palermo, he finds a new life and a new love, while being targeted by death.

The film’s pretentious philosophical musings, preachy dialogue, and ludicrous plot are pretty over the top, even by Wender’s standards. Thankfully, it’s a stylishly shot film that raises some important questions about life and death, which is a complex subject we can all relate to.

The weakest link though is Wender’s choice of Campino as Finn the photographer. I’ve seen a doorknob with better acting range. Calling him wooden would be too generous. Anything he says sounds like a line from the script, and the script is weak enough, to begin with. Luckily Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Dennis Hooper also feature in the film. Milla Jovovich also puts in a cameo appearance.

38. Gentleman’s Relish (2001)

Gentleman’s Relish Ratings: IMDB: 6.2 – Rotten Tomatoes: N.A. – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 6.2)

In this comedy set in early 20th-century London, frustrated artist Kingdom Swann (Billy Connolly) is given a life-changing gift of a camera from his housekeeper. With the help of his new assistant, he starts a new career in photography.

Swann successfully photographs society pictures until two sisters ask him to photograph them in the nude. His assistant encourages him to specialize in “tableaux”: photographic versions of famous paintings of nudes, using local prostitutes as his models. Realizing the potential of the photos, his assistant secretly prints selected parts of the images and sells them to a supplier of pornography.

39 Fotograf (2015)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 6.2 – Rotten Tomatoes: N.A. – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 6.2)

Fotograf is a film based on his life and work of Czech photographer Jan Saudek. The biopic, which is co-written by Saudek, stars Karel Roden as the photographer.

The only thing this film did was leave me with a headache. I’ll admit I didn’t know anything about Saudek before watching this, and by the end of it, I didn’t want to know anymore.

Typically films about photographers are beautifully photographed and have at least one thing I like about them but that isn’t the case with Fotograf. The Dialogue is forced, characters are too theatrical and the editing, especially of the flashbacks are terrible. I wouldn’t go out of your way to watch this one.

40. Harrison’s Flowers (2000)

Harrison Flowers Ratings: IMDB: 7.1 – Rotten Tomatoes: 49%/7.6 – Metacritic: 49%/5.5 (Photogpedia Score: 6.2)

An American wife (McDowell) travels to war-torn Yugoslavia during the midst of civil war in 1991, to find her husband, a photojournalist for Newsweek, who has been reported missing. She teams up with two other photographers, played by Adrian Brody and Brendan Gleeson to find her husband and save him from a hotbed of genocide.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, Harrison (well played by David Straithairn), is envied and even despised by some of his younger colleagues. The film captures the competitiveness of photojournalism, the petty and not so petty rivalry among peers with the subjects they cover, the relative dangers, and the kinds of photos produced.

The only negative is the casting of Andie McDowell as Sarah. For the film to be effective, it calls for an actress with a forceful presence, such as Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett or Kate Winslett. Unfortunately, lacking an expressive face, the few close-ups of McDowell don’t do much to illuminate Sarah’s inner conflicts and her gaining of a more mature, realistic, and alert political consciousness.

That said, this is still a beautifully shot film with an authentic look. Harrison Flowers is a fascinating movie that is worth adding to your watchlist.

41. The Public Eye (1992)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 6.5 – Rotten Tomatoes: 63%/5.3 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 6.2)

The Public Eye is a noir thriller set in New York in l942, which follows Leon Bernstein (Joe Pesci), a tabloid photographer whose camera captures it all. The “Great Bernzini” as he’s called for his uncanny ability to arrive first on the scene of murders, is an unforgettable character.

Armed with a police radio and a portable darkroom, Bernzy hunts the nightclubs and alleys in search of a murder, a fire, a drunken celebrity – any image he can quickly photograph and sell for a few quick bucks.

Then the glamorous Kay Levitz (played wonderfully by Barbara Hershey) turns to him when the Mob seems to be muscling in on the club she owns. Bernstein agrees to help, believing that they’ll be some good photos in it for him. Instead, he ends up falling in love with Kay.

Inspired by the lives of tabloid photographers (specifically Weegee), director Howard Franklin combines black and white vignettes (like tabloid photographs brought to life) with a rich and memorable cast of characters. The Public Eye also features some of Weegee’s photos which is a nice touch. You’ll see plenty of 4×5 Graflex press cameras in the underrated gem of a film.

42. The Bang Bang Club

The Bang Bang Club Ratings: IMDB: 7.0 – Rotten Tomatoes: 49%/6.0 – Metacritic: 48%/6.0 (Photogpedia Score: 6.0)

Based on real-life events, The Bang Bang Club is an action-drama film about four photographers (Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek, João Silva and Greg Marinovich) as they document the conflict in Apartheid in South Africa between 1990 and 1994.

While it’s been criticized for not exploring the politics involved and the bigger picture, it does a great job of capturing the realities of life as a conflict photographer and the horrors of the Apartheid.

43. Triage (2009)

Triage Ratings: IMDB: 6.5 – Rotten Tomatoes: 53% – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 5.9)

In 1988, War photographer’s Mark Walsh (Colin Farrell) and his best friend David (Jamie Sives) are on assignment in war-torn Kurdistan.

Whilst there they are, witness, to the terrifying realities of war. When an explosion goes off, Mark is seriously injured, and he returns home to his wife Elena (Paz Vega) leaving David behind.

His wife is concerned as she watches Mark struggle to readjust and calls in her psychiatrist Grandfather Joaquin (Christopher Lee), who once treated war criminals.

Based on the novel of the same name by American war correspondent Scott Anderson, Triage is a chilling tale of the post-traumatic stress experienced by conflict photographers and soldiers.

44. Life (2015)

Life Ratings: IMDB: 6.0 – Rotten Tomatoes: 65%/4.4 – Metacritic: 59%/5.3 (Photogpedia Score: 5.7)

Directed by Anton Corbijn, this film biopic tells the story of Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson), a Life Magazine photographer and his friendship with rising movie star James Dean (Dane DeHaan).  Life is a period drama that focuses on how the magazine got its iconic photo spread with Dean in 1955, before the actor’s death at just 24.

45. Femme Fatale (2002)

Femme Fatale Ratings: IMDB: 6.2 – Rotten Tomatoes: 49%/4.9 – Metacritic: 59%/5.8 (Photogpedia Score: 5.7)

Brian De Palma’s Femme Fatale is a contemporary film noir about a former jewel thief and con woman trying to live the straight life.

Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn) helps pull off a diamond robbery in Cannes the week of the annual film festival. She double-crosses her partners and makes off with the diamonds to Paris where she accidentally assumes the identity of a woman who commits suicide. We next skip ahead seven years and Laure (now called Lily Watts) re-surfaces as the wife of the new American ambassador to France. Enter paparazzi photographer Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas) who takes Laure’s picture. This sets the stage for the rest of the movie, as Laure goes back to her old ways, and does whatever it takes to protect her former identity and stop the past from coming back to haunt her.

There are plenty of positives with the movie. The excellent long opening sequences are done almost entirely without dialogue and the ending (which is the best part of the film) provides DePalma’s signature twist. The film is also beautifully photographed.

Femme Fatale is sexy, seductive, but not DePalma’s best film. Yes, it has some moments of brilliance, but for some, these flashes of cinematic mastery are not enough. Unless you’re a fan of DePalma’s other movies or Antonio Banderas then I’d give this one a miss.

46. We’ll Take Manhattan (2012)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 6.8 – Rotten Tomatoes: 4.5 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 5.7)

We’ll Take Manhattan tells the real-life story of the 1960s love affair between photographer David Bailey (Aneurin Barnard) and model Jean Shrimpton (Karen Gillan). The focus of the film is the iconic New York assignment for British Vogue in 1962 and the conflict between Bailey and fashion editor Lady Clare (played excellently by Helen McCory).

47. Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006)

Fur Ratings: IMDB: 6.5 – Rotten Tomatoes: 32%/6.3 – Metacritic: 50%/5.4 (Photogpedia Score: 5.5)

An original but seriously flawed film, Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, aims to show the career of Diane Arbus, one of the greatest photographers of the last century, by centering on one crucial encounter between Diane (Nicole Kidman) and a fictional character named Lionel (Robert Downey), a misfit who helps Arbus express her demons and channel them into art.

Loosely inspired on the book Diane Arbus: A Biography, written in 1984 by Patricia Bosworth (also a producer), the film is book-ended by Diane Arbus’ visit to a nudist camp. Don’t treat the film as fact, though: the story is mainly fictional, and the Diane Arbus estate refused to give their approval (I don’t blame them.)

Okay, so the first time I watched this, I turned it off after about twenty minutes. When researching this article, I forced myself to sit through it again. It was painful. I wanted to like it, but I honestly believe this is the worst movie on the list.

Beauty and the Beast

If you watch the film expecting an entertaining biography about Diane Arbus then you’re going to be grossly disappointed. Now, if you’re looking for a romantic comedy about a bored housewife who has an affair with Chewbacca then this is a film for you. A variation of Beauty and the Beast gone wrong.

The only good thing about the movie was the end credits. The rest of the film was awful. I think Nicole Kidman is one of the best actresses in the business, but she couldn’t even save this film. Truth be told, she is miscast as Arbus. There was nothing likable about her character, and by the end of the film, I actually disliked her (not good for your protagonist). Not only was the film badly written but it was overacted and poorly directed.

48. Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 6.2 – Rotten Tomatoes: 46%/4.3 – Metacritic: 49% (Photogpedia Score: 5.2)

Eyes of Laura Mars is a thriller centered on fashion photographer Laura (Faye Dunaway), who’s being terrorized by psychic visions of horrific murders. Worse still, she sees them through the eyes of the killer. The film has a good original premise but sadly suffers from a thin plot.

The Laura Mars character was heavily influenced by Helmut Newton’s work and he even provided photos to be used in the film. Dunaway’s portrayal of a photographer is spot on and makes watching this film worthwhile. Tommy-Lee Jones is also excellent as John Neville.

The problem with the film though is the lack of suspense. Anyone can guess who the murderer is within the first ten minutes. The film also starts off well but loses its way half-way through. I would also love to know how Laura got her telepathic abilities too?

Overall, it’s an entertaining movie, and I can see why it’s a cult favorite. Would I recommend the Eyes of Laura Mars? Probably, because it has the talented and beautiful Faye Dunaway in it, a good soundtrack and features Helmut Newton’s photos.

49. Mapplethorpe (2018)

Mapplethorpe Ratings: IMDB: 6.1 – Rotten Tomatoes: 31%/6.4 – Metacritic: 42%/4.5 (Photogpedia Score: 5.1)

A film chronicling the life and career of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (played by Matt Smith) from his rise to fame in the 1970s to his death at the age of 42 in 1989.

There’s a reason this movie is near the bottom of this list. The less said about it the better.

50. Friday Foster (1975)

Movie Ratings: IMDB: 6.0 – Rotten Tomatoes: 3.9 – Metacritic: N.A. (Photogpedia Score: 5.0)

Friday Foster (Pam Grier), a photographer for a magazine in Los Angeles, is sent on assignment to get pictures of a reclusive billionaire who is arriving in secret at a nearby airport. It turns out she’s not the only one taking shots as she witnesses and photographs an assassination attempt on her subject. Fortunate to get out alive, she finds herself getting deeper and deeper into the dangerous situation. With the photos in her possession, she becomes a target for the murderers. Teaming up with a private eye, Foster sets out to discover the truth behind the assassination attempt.

Despite a great premise, the script is a little weak and the plot lacks focus. Pam Grier is excellent though and she is supported by a solid cast including Carl Weathers (Apollo Creed in Rocky) and Scatman Crothers. Friday Foster is an underrated film with an interesting premise that deserves to be higher up on this list (well above Mapplethorpe anyway.)

Ranking the Movies

All movies are given an overall score out of 10. To work out this score, I combined ratings from the three most popular movie review websites: IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic and then worked out an average.

IMDB Rating + Rotten Tomatoes Average Rating (Critic/Audience) + Metacritic Average Rating (Critic/Audience) = Combined Rating

I then divided the combined rating by the number of websites that reviewed the film (normally all three of them).

Combined Rating/Websites = Average Rating and Photogpedia Score

These ratings are derived from both audience and critics. Click here to see an image of my spreadsheet to get a better understanding of how the movies were ranked. Ratings were last checked on the 31st of January 2020.

Final Words

This concludes our list of photography movies. If we’re missing any, then leave a comment in the section below and we’ll check it out. Also, let us know which photography movie is your favorite and how many movies from the list you’ve seen.

If you found the list helpful then we would be grateful if you could share the post with others. Thanks for reading.

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