Words matter. These are the best Cameraman Quotes from famous people such as Harvey Fierstein, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Dennis Muren, Michael Bond, Peter Bergen, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Anyone with a smart phone is a potential eyewitness cameraman capturing and transmitting stories at speeds that turn Reuter photos and traditional reporting into, well… yesterday’s news.
My work is made on lines similar to those of a film production. A lot of my work is kind of bureaucratic, endlessly phoning up people, trying to find the cameraman and the lighting man, because I am a total technology-phobe, quite helpless with equipment.
Yes, if I had it my way I would do all the shots myself – I used to do that when I was just a cameraman, an operator – but there’s no way; you can’t do that anymore.
I worked on ‘Blue Peter’ and ‘Tonight’ and lots of TV plays, filmed people like Rudolf Nureyev and Ted Heath, and ended up a senior cameraman with my own crew. I’d had my first short story published in 1947, and when my writing really started to take off I decided to go freelance, and eventually left the BBC in 1965.
Abu Musab al-Suri is someone I got to know pretty well because he’s a Syrian. Very bright guy, lived in London. He actually was the person who took myself and correspondent Peter Arnett and the cameraman, Peter Juvenal, to interview bin Laden for his first TV interview.
I thought it was ridiculous that I was being paid less than a cameraman, and I wanted to shame them. And I did.
I never take credit for my movie’s success. I am the face of the movie, but there are numerous unsung heroes behind the scene. From the director, cameraman and editor to the light boy, everyone knows how difficult it is to satisfy the audience.
One thing I learnt was that you don’t have to spend all day shooting: you can get it done in half an hour if you’re that talented as a cameraman.
In the old days, before there was such a thing as film schools, directors learned the camera by watching other directors, and learning from their own dailies, and listening to the cameraman, and seeing what would work. Some of those guys could cut their movies in their head.
My dad was an actor and a writer; my mum was a drama teacher. My grandma was an actress. My aunt is an actress. My granddad was a cameraman. They would’ve been surprised if I wanted to be a dentist or something like that.
There is the danger of over preparation, of loss of spontaneity; over rehearsal is the most terrible thing you can imagine. We do have a very close association between costume and set designer, though. And the cameraman is very important, of course.
I tried to get a job as a TV cameraman and they basically told me, ‘You’re mad, everyone wants these jobs – and if you go to England, you’re doubly mad.’ But I worked in abattoirs for 10 months to earn my money, then left for London. I didn’t even know what a director did.
We were on a fairway shooting a scene in ‘The Dogleg Murders’ when I was asked by the cameraman if it was safe to film from where he was standing. I said, ‘Yes, it’ll be fine.’ I then managed to slice the ball 90 degrees into the camera.
Having been a cameraman, I think about, ‘Well, if this was real, how would this be shot?’ I try to inject as much realism as much as possible.
I did a few documentaries as co-director and cameraman. I started off shooting a film about the war in Rhodesia. Then I did a film about an ‘around the world’ yacht race with a friend, and we spent nine months on a yacht. The film was about how people get on in confined spaces under extreme stress.
When Iron Man’s flying, we’d send real planes up to do the choreography so that we’d get the camerawork to really look like a cameraman was following from another plane. It gives it that ‘Top Gun’ look.
I have been at CNN my entire career. When I first started, I raised my hand and volunteered for everything. It allowed me to get a wide range of experience and learn from the best – whether it was a cameraman or an anchorman.
Often I pretended to a cameraman to know less than I did. That way I got more cooperation.
As a cameraman, I was paid to stand within a few feet of Yehudi Menuhin performing. I saw Rudolph Nureyev dancing. I couldn’t believe I was being paid for that.
There are times when it’s absolutely appropriate to march up to someone, stick out your hand and introduce yourself, and times when it’s best to let your male cameraman or producer do the talking and hang back until you’ve felt out the situation.
