Karthik Subbaraj 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.

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

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.

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

Visual elements are, of course, the director's job.

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 cinematographer's basically translating the director's vision into imagery.

Cinematography is so much about instinct and intuition - you want the same range of experience going into behind the camera as what you see in front of it. Your life experience will come through the lens.

I am a film director, and I work with a visual language, with a visual medium. And I try to make virtue of the use of this visual medium. And I try to make sure what I do speaks the language of cinema.

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.

I was very glad later when I was directing that I wasn't in the hands of a cinematographer and hoping that he would do it well. I would know what he was doing, and we could discuss how that scene would look.

I really got into filmmaking through photography.

Well, I've learned something from Michael Robison just about maximizing your shots. For example, if I'm shooting a scene and someone's driving at the wheel, you could steal an insert in the same shot.

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.

My dad had been an ardent amateur photographer, and he taught me to compose a photograph from the back to the front, and then populate the picture.

Most people think of cinematographers as choosing subjects of an epic nature to show off what they do - big, sweeping images of war or pageantry.

Great art direction is NOT the same thing as great film direction!

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

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 never think about it much, the visual aspect of it, until we start making the movie. I don't really think about it when we write. When we finish, and I start putting the film together, and we pick the locations, I do think about that a lot.

TV helped me understand camera angles, close-ups, master shots.

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

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