Rithy Panh Quotes

The job is trying to create movie shots that have depth, that have the meanings you need them to have, and then good enough so that they will add something to the final picture. They will make the picture; they'll get into the picture, and give them what they need. It's an interesting job.

Every shot is unique, even if it's just a close-up, an insert of your hand. You've got to work with the guy behind the lens to get it right, focus in. Those are critical little nothing things, but you've got to work with the people who are trying to put it down, in order to get it.

With the work that I do as a director, I've got dialogue, camera movement, and character blocking to help create a tone to the piece. In photography, those elements are somewhat void so that tone becomes a bit more subtle but still equally important.

I was never one for multi-cameras; my approach was always... I always considered there was only one place to be to do a shot.

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

When I take a picture I take 10 percent of what I see.

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

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.

The process of shooting - of choosing shots - is intuitive for me, and I just feel my way towards what seems right.

For a cinematographer, every frame has to be important.

There are a thousand ways to point a camera, but really only one.

As a director, you're looking for ways to tell the story with the whole image and not primarily dialogue.

I'm not an artist. I set the camera up and tell my story.

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

So much of it is the design of the shot or the motion of the character; it's the work you do so that it has the same things that are in the movie. In just a few frames it's got to communicate something clearly and dramatically.

Whenever I arrive on a real location, I have to move around and work out what the best angles are going to be. When I was moving around with the lens, I discovered things that the naked eye would not have.

I'm always secretly the most pleased when a show just really, really looks good and when my camera guys are really happy with the images they got.

I learned a lot about how to shoot and how to put together sequences.

If you shoot with a billion cameras, then there's no perspective. You want to use one shot at a time, so it's better to discover what that is before you shoot, rather than trying to make something in the cutting room, and then it just becomes generic.

Videos are more like photography. It's not as much about trying to tell a story as it is creating images.

I always saw photography as a way to get to film.

Architecture has a strong link with the movies in terms of time progression, sequencing, framing, all of that.

I really got into filmmaking through photography.

Film directing has perfected my theater directing. I think when I first started directing, a lot of my stuff was very lateral; I was afraid to have the actors' backs turned away, afraid to put them too far upstage, and I think once I did more things with film, I got more interested in composition.

When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it.