Roger Deakins Quotes

I was no stranger to risk myself, having made documentaries in dangerous conditions in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Africa.

I want to venture into film more, and I think that a nice way to transition into doing that would be a documentary. I think it would be interesting to find one person that really fascinated me or maybe a band and travel with them, but I don't think I could do it like I used to do it.

If I had a choice as to my perfect career, I would make a couple of films a year and then concentrate on natural history.

Filmmaking is a great adventure. I'm as excited as a kid to be given tickets to fly suddenly to England, South Africa, America, everywhere. I'm still a 13-year-old kid, flying.

I've always slightly harboured a dream of making a film, a documentary feature. Somehow, I just got into a way of working a routine of making TV docs.

What got me into making movies was that I wanted to be a journalist.

I suppose making documentaries is like doing journalism on film.

I'm not an activist at all. I'm a filmmaker, and I wanted the people involved to tell their own story.

The camera is the slave to the actor.

When you make documentaries or short films, you have to have eyes and ears in the back of your head and on the sides and all around you. I like that in my films.

I'm going to do more movies and travel.

Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people—and kill them.

When I first started in film, I was terrified of the camera.

I prefer directing to acting. There is huge freedom that comes from being behind the camera. It brings a lot of responsibilities as well but is intensely rewarding.

I hate making TV documentaries.

My dream role is actually behind the camera. I want to direct.

From 2005 to 2010, I was exclusively shooting 'The Act of Killing' and then editing it.

I started doing documentaries in the first place because of the war. I always wanted to do feature films, and I studied directing when the war started, so I was working with actors before, in film and in theater. So I think it's easy to work with actors when you have a script that is clear, when they know what and why they are doing it.

I am interested in people. I'm interested in telling stories, whether that is behind the camera or in front of the camera.

One of my biggest fears as a director is that everything is taking too long on camera. The actor saying their lines, the silence between lines, the length of time it takes to walk from A to B. So you try it at different speeds and then see what sticks in the edit room.

My biggest thing is I really want to be able to travel and make videos.

I wanted to do journalism, as I was an idealist. Then, in my second year of journalism, I realized that in real life, things don't work the way you expect them to. I realized that I could express my ideas better through films.

Acting is fun, but directing is very stressful.

There's something about the lack of certainty with a documentary, which is exhausting if you do three in a row. It's nerve-wracking.

I never thought that I would ever go over to China for any reason - then to be able to go over there and play basketball, embracing the culture.