Donna Mills Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

In the past, there were many times when I thought, 'This photo doesn't look good with a low angle, or this part bothers me.'

For a cinematographer, every frame has to be important.

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

I have a low-tech camera with one lens that I've shot everything in my life on. My subjects and my subject matter sometimes really are powerful, and so my job is to get it into focus.

I seldom think when I take a picture. My eyes and fingers react - click. But first, it's most important to decide on the angle at which your photograph is to be taken.

I think a lot of the time these days people are so concerned about having the right camera and the right film and the right lenses and all the special effects that go along with it, even the computer, that they're missing the key element.

Photography can be a volatile situation. It can be very potent.

I always think, 'What does this picture mean? What's the best place to put my camera? Do I have anything extra in the picture, things in the background that will distract? Am I in the basic position that will give the essential things for this picture but not too much?'

What I end up shooting is the situation. I shoot the composition and my subject is going to help the composition or not.

My lens of choice was always the 35 mm. It was more environmental. You can't come in closer with the 35 mm.

The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer.

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.

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.

I've learned to create a palette, a vocabulary of ways to take pictures.