I think from an early age I was aware of how a camera can tell a story, how a movie camera can affect how the narrative is told.
With the fight scenes, they would take a video camera and shoot alongside the camera so we would piece it together on the computer and had an extremely rough cut of what we were doing.
For nearly two years, I was flying above the planet with my camera. I knew straight away that this was something important to do, just at this moment, a portrait of the planet for the millennium year. I worked in 80 countries, fighting for money all the time.
We’re all living in a casino. It’s just Vegas. Everything is on camera. Everything is being recorded. Everything is on audio. The truth is we all have access to everybody else’s information.
For an actor working in television or film, I think it’s important to understand how the medium works – how the camera and lenses work and how the sound and the editing works.
The majority of my background is multi-camera format, which is very broad and a very arch perception of reality. Whereas single camera tends to be more truthful and a little more intimate of a medium.
I started out with this dream of being a director and doing cinematography and bought my first film camera at 15.
The way NXT has been from day one when I was asked to do it, ‘Don’t put me on camera. I do not need to be on camera unless it’s absolutely necessary. This isn’t about me, it’s about the talent,’ and everyone that works in NXT, that’s what we think.
I like doing as many special effects in camera, as much as possible.
I hate cameras. I hate cameras and I hate camera phones. The camera’s my worst enemy and my best friend. It’s the way I convey my emotions to the world without saying a word, so I use it. People always say, ‘You come alive as soon as the camera’s on!’
No matter how many helicopters there are, when it comes down to it there is the camera and you.
I like being involved in the lighter side of journalism because it serves a purpose, and it’s fun. And I can keep my opinions off camera if I want.
There are certain men and women who, from the minute they step in front of a camera, that’s exactly where they belong. Connery’s one.
I wish that every director was as interested in doing as much in camera and with physical objects as much as possible as J.J. Abrams is.
My stepfather gave me a Kodak camera when I was 17 years old. I started working at a local photo store in Le Havre, France, taking passport pictures and photographing weddings.
I really love sort of classical cinema where people were telling stories with very little dialogue, and people were using the camera in a really interesting way.
A kiss with anyone, on or off camera, can be intimidating. I’ve been kissing for nearly two decades now, and I’m always convinced I’m not doing it right. Chemistry is so important in a great kiss. You can act your way through anything, but it’s hard with a kiss.
I have always been a very keen walker, though, and I often took a camera with me on my walks.
I play football, and most football players are camera shy. We just want to be left alone; we just want to stick to what we do.
For some reason, it popped into my head the notion that a lot of the Next Generation cast in the long run of that show managed to step behind the camera.
Life came in and put me in front of the camera before I could really make a decision, but I think I probably would have gravitated to film.
I stumbled into this business, I didn’t train for it. I yelled ‘Action!’ on my first two movies before the camera was turned on.
We put too much on contemporary dancers. A lot of them cannot change styles; a lot of them can’t do anything else other than run around the stage reaching and stretching in anguish to somebody off camera that I never understand who it is. But it’s the teenage angst they have to live with.
With Altman, he does discuss everything with you, but then leaves you to it and gives you full rein and lets you improvise and create a character while the camera is rolling.
I certainly never expected to be in front of a camera one day of my life.
I don’t like working in front of a camera.
I’ve got a lot of weaknesses. One of them is that I often get scared and tense when I’m working – and fear is one of the big threats to any good performance, because it closes you down and makes it harder for you to produce life in front of the camera.
I feel every shot, every camera move, every frame, and the way you frame something and the choice of lens, I see all those things are really important on every shot.
It’s an incredible privilege for an actor to look into the camera. It’s like looking right into the heart of the film, and you can’t take that lightly.
The first time I saw ‘Private Practice,’ I was hooked. The camera work is captivating, the acting is the-best-of-the-best amazing, and each storyline is so interesting and different.
I don’t have a great face for camera.
Where I think the most work needs to be done is behind the camera, not in front of it.
When you are younger, the camera is like a friend and you can go places and feel like you’re with someone, like you have a companion.
I like being on camera, performing, seeing what people have in common.
Lesson number one: Pay attention to the intrusion of the camera.
I was shocked the first time the paps got me in America – when a video camera is put in your face and you’re asked questions and 15 people are walking backwards taking your picture. I was coming out of a pizza shop and had my daughter with me.
When you’re modeling you’re actually acting for the camera and the photographer. It’s more fun, too because there are no lines to memorize.
It’s a question of dropping the armor and getting up and doing the work you want to do. And film at first is frightening because you are like, ‘What’s that camera doing?’ But then it becomes family and therefore a really wonderful experience.
Taking employment out of the country – now that’s taking away jobs. These shows employ a lot of people: production, post-production, music supervisors, camera people. A hundred people or more.
I’m kind of a tech geek. With the camera work, I chose to shoot super 16, which has a real tactile feel. I feel it’s as authentic as possible; I love the way the grain feels.
We had a script that was really solid and we knew how we were going to shoot and how the energy of it was going to go. So it gave us a lot of freedom to use the camera as a character.
Just as Renaissance artists provided narratives for the era they lived in, so do I. I’m always looking beyond the surface. I’ve done that ever since I first picked up a camera.
I don’t try to hide who I am when I appear in public places, act, or attend interviews. If I do, it makes the gap even wider. I like it best when someone says I’m the same on television, on camera, or off camera. This makes it easier for me.
One of the most memorable and frightening things when I was four or five was Kate Bush doing ‘Wuthering Heights.’ She did it outside, in a forest, and she did this thing where she looked straight into the camera, and it’s the most frightening thing for a kid to see, but it just stuck in my head.
Making a pretty picture, an image, is a completely different thing from acting to camera.
One of the Life Saving men snapped the camera for us, taking a picture just as the machine had reached the end of the track and had risen to a height of about two feet.
A lot of cable television is shot on a single camera. Our eyes are more trained to that. It takes the camera off the crane, away from observing the action, to becoming a character in the story along with everyone else. People are getting used to that.
I think that I need to work on being comfortable at being normal, everyday-ish on camera. Unlike a lot of actors, I think that’s the thing that I’m not so comfortable with.
I went on tour with the Rolling Stones in 1972 for two or three cities. And in 1975, I was the tour photographer for the Rolling Stones. I hung onto my camera for dear life. Because it scared the hell out of me.
When someone’s acting for a scene, they can fool the camera. But in everyday life, unless you’re watching and censoring yourself every minute, or spending all your time in the company of ladies, what you feel is bound to show in your eyes.
Hugh Grant does a great job with his style. Somehow understated yet timeless and seems to get it. He does it on and off camera.
I feel that modelling has groomed my personality and made me a confident person, but even today, when I go on the ramp, I get nervous. I am more comfortable being in front of the camera than walking on the ramp.
Climbing a big wall over several days is like running a giant construction project: constantly making lists, rigging ropes, organising food, figuring out camera angles – but you’re in this crazy place with your best friends, and it does take on a party atmosphere sometimes, like a big dudes’ camping trip.
I have been trying to retire to the back of the camera for quite a few years, and in 1970, when I first started directing, I said, ‘If I could pull this off, I can some day move to the back of the camera and stay there.’
I don’t like getting up in front of people and being the loud one when everybody’s out quiet and you’re the only one talking. I’m not a fan of that. I’m fine when I get in front of a camera, I don’t care. You’ll never see me on stage. Not at all.
