Javier Camara Quotes

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

The only reason for using another cut is to improve the scene.

A shot is only as every as good as how well it tells the story.

When I started, you didn't focus so much on production, certainly not - gosh - down to the finest little detail of how you shifted your eyes or how you turned to somebody. A lot of the shots were far away from a still camera. There weren't as many close-ups and intimacy.

I've always had the utmost respect and awe of what the lens can do and what a director can do with just a camera move.

You don't want to be the guy whose back's to the camera in the emotional part of the movie. So, you have to be aware of the camera movement and what the camera's doing.

I like to give dimension to shots inside action scenes. It's demanding because you have to rehearse a lot of things happening at the same time and frame all those things in a shot. But I feel like when you accomplish that then you've got a cool action scene.

I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.

With moviemaking, the audience always has to keep asking, 'What happens next?' If you have the wrong piece of music over a scene, people aren't going to get the scene. If you have the wrong camera angle, people aren't going to pay attention. That's as much a part of the process as getting people to talk to you.

I don't study films particularly. I plan to direct, but I'm not watching film - I watch the entire film to see how the story goes, but I don't say, 'Oh, so he does a slow pan here, or he pulls here, watch the crane shot, or look at the composition,' because it's got to be my eye.

All these directors who do different locations forget that one room can be shot from a million different angles and a million different ways. When I direct a movie, I'm going to use that.

I would love to direct a western. I love taking photographs and I'm always fascinated with angles. Also, my father was a film editor, and I have a talent for thinking of things that aren't always in a script.

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

I also know what looks good before the camera, how to move the camera, and how to get a story on the screen.

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.

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.

We have an uncanny ability to make birds do what we want them to do. In Blood Simple there's a shot from the bumper of a car and it's going up this road and a huge flock of birds takes off at the perfect moment.

Normally as a director, you do look at other films and things that are relevant. But with this film, it became impossible because I became so aware of the camera placement.

There's two aspects of film crafting that I'm very strict about, and that's how I move my camera and where I cut the film.

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

Any time I approach a scene, it's not just what's on the page - it's how the camera's going to show or not show what's on the page. It's which character are we going to align with and what music is going to be playing.

Shooting on film is great because it imparts discipline: What do you need to see so you're not finding it in the camera. When I'm shooting, I have the scene in mind, where I'm going to have certain lines. I learned to overlap and to shoot more than I think I need. That was the learning curve.

Film gives us the luxury of deciding where the viewpoint of the audience is, and by knowing that, we can very effectively design around what is actually seen on camera.

I don't cover my scenes. We approach it visually. Sometimes we go out of our way to do awkward blocking so that we can tell whatever the emotional heartbeat is of that scene in the most interesting way possible.

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.