Indira Varma Quotes

I joke around sometimes and say that the DP [director of photography] is like a shrink for the director, but there's some truth in there.

First and foremost, my hats off to our directors and camera department. That is something I will miss after Longmire. I can't imagine working on another show that looks like this. We'll get the whole crew out on location and have a hundred people standing around, waiting for about 40 minutes, so that sun is just a little bit further in the sky and the light is hitting the cloud, in the perfect way.

My interest in filmmaking was always very much the visuals and images.

I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes.

Filmmaking is a creative process so there is a lot of collaboration that happens on set between an actor and director, but at the end of the day, we're there to actualize the director's vision and things happen organically.

You can give the greatest performance possible, but if you don't have a director who's pointing the camera in the right direction and an editor who's editing it properly, it doesn't matter what you do. The director and the editor are the most important people. Not the actors. Sometimes the writer is important. But if you don't have a good director, you can't have a good production.

When you shoot in America, you have huge beams of sunlight in the windows, very vivid sunlight - it's faster in a way.

When you're a director, you have great respect for directors. I am really pretty loyal to any director that I am working for and I want to help them realize whatever story and mood and tone that they're trying to realize. As an actor, you really just are a cog - you are an important cog, but you are just a piece of the machine.

A lot of directors in my experience are very receptive. They see what you do first, and then they want to find a place to put the camera, and they tweak you here and there.

I don't like to watch playback. But being on the set, watching the way the camera is being moved and the way the light is being used, you do get an idea of it.

I don't think of myself as a director or writer. I think of myself as a filmmaker.

I'm the kind of person who likes to create the environment and mindset - not because I do it deliberately, but because that's how I like to live - where, from catering to makeup to hair to wardrobe, electricians, camera department lighting, sound, you know, it's our movie; we're together, and we have that camaraderie and that closeness.

There are a lot of directors who are knowledgeable about images, and others who aren't.

Zhang Yimou is an artist. Sometimes we did only two or three shots a day because we were waiting for the sun.

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.

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.

I think we've shot scenes from every angle directors can think of to make it look like different villages. I've directed a couple shows on that set and believe me, it's impossible not to duplicate some camera angles.

I think, at the end of the day, filmmaking is a team, but eventually there's got to be a captain.

I look at directing as a sporting event. It's a race, a marathon. It's great when it clicks, which is why I push my crews so hard so we can excel.

I think the atmosphere on set really comes from the material, but also the director.

I'm one of the few directors that actually shoots a lot in camera.

You can't direct without a good crew.

Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture.

There is a director for a reason, because a director knows what's best for the movie. You just give your director as much as you can to work with, and hopefully, the decisions they make are going to be great.

It's a really exciting thing to collaborate with production designers, cinematographers and gaffers and costume designers and editors and composers.