Michael Spiller Quotes

The way you present a stunt is tied in to the way you photograph it, so you're hanging out with the cinematographer.

I design my shots. I walk the rehearsal as the camera and say 'this is where I want to be... I want this look.

Directing is very close to choreography; you deal with space, time, emotions, lighting, making beautiful images.

I can't do a one-camera show. I don't know how to do that kind of show where you count in your head and then you do the next line.

I've learned a lot about stage-managing for illustration. Sometimes you have to delete characters from a scene just to keep from overcrowding the image. I've also learned to making big-scale design decisions early.

Some directors are interested in acting, and others are only interested in cranes and moving the camera.

Ashok Mehta was the man who brought contrast and lighting back to mainstream Hindi film cinematography.

Half of 'Mudbound' were shots I stole in between other scenes.

I do like being in front of the camera more and more. Having experience behind it has taught me about lighting and angles, how to move, and what looks good and what doesn't.

I really enjoy blocking and staging. I think most of visual storytelling is camera placement and how to stage action around the camera.

For me, there's far too many close-ups in film. They're a television technique.

I just - I kind of see it that way. I find the higher angles down. I do - look, you can go back to the staircase shots in "Third Man" or the staircase in "La Dolce Vita." So I just find that visual construction in a frame.

We build camera rigs tailored specifically to the story we're trying to tell or the shot we're trying to capture.

I'm very impressed by films like' Whiplash' or what Fincher does, where you get all these different... Where you get all this coverage that's perfectly linked up. I actually find coverage very confusing. But I love sequencing shots because I know exactly where I am.

Everything that is somehow related to direction and filmmaking fascinates me, like cinematography.

I've discovered that being behind the camera is more fascinating. If I had to choose a profession today, it would have been something behind the camera.

I'll say this: I think from a directing standpoint, 'Loving' is my most accomplished film. Strictly from a technical, directing point of view.

Laszlo Kovacs was marvelous. He was very much in the same school as Bill Frake, who was, of course, a great cinematographer as well. They had a very similar style and similar sensibility.

Not every director does this, but I did: I made a list of every shot you're going to set up for every scene in the script.

I always direct next to the camera and watch my actors, and so you can see the small things that you can't see on the small screen but you can definitely see on the big screen.

An actor's performance can be improved or shaped - or ruined - by what takes you use, how long you are on the actor's face, what line you put on the other actor's face, and when do you use close-ups or wide shots or two shots.

I've always been passionate about directing.

What makes a lot of suspenseful films work is very, very particular points of view and very subjective use of the camera.

The script is so important... Even if you have a huge entourage or big lighting trucks, the most important thing is the space between the actor and the camera.

A movie contains literally tens of thousands of ideas. They're in the form of every sentence; in the performance of each line; in the design of characters, sets, and backgrounds; in the locations of the camera; in the colors, the lighting, the pacing.