Jose Padilha Quotes

I film quite a bit of footage, then edit. Changes before your eyes, things you can do and things you can't. My attitude is always 'let it keep rolling.'

Usually I design the lighting and when I have the physical set there, I'm not good at going out loosely and saying, 'Do you what you want, give it to the editor, and he'll figure it out.' I physically then walk on with the actors and I say, 'Let's walk until you guys feel the space works for you, and tell me when all that happens.'

Every cinematographer I worked with had his own way of solving problems.

In my films that I've directed, and my work in commercials and videos, I've rarely used handheld. It's just not something I'm drawn to, but I've seen it done very well.

The way I work with my cinematographer is not based on general principles, but the ideas are triggered by the locations where we shoot.

We had a script that was really solid and we knew how we were going to shoot and how the energy of it was going to go. So it gave us a lot of freedom to use the camera as a character.

I try to learn from both, from features and documentaries. In both cases you have to find a way to make the camera as discreet as possible, and flexible enough to be able to capture the moment when it happens. I know from documentary how to not have a preconceived idea of what the scene could be.

I love directing scenes that I'm not in because suddenly I really feel like a filmmaker which is a different thing.

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.

I don't storyboard, and I don't really shot list. I let the shots be determined by how the actors and I figure out the blocking in a scene, and then from there, we cover it.

There's a method to the madness in filmmaking, where everything's very specifically laid out, the shots and what they need - but there also can be a freedom to allowing the actors to find genuine moments.

When you move handheld, and the director of photography has the courage to shoot with no lights, the set becomes a space of creativity and freedom where actors can move wherever they want to move.

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.

When I work, I really try to get absorbed in the character. Unless I want to do something playful with the camera, I'm not too worried about where the camera is or positions.

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.

When you go to set, they just go, 'OK, let's see what you guys do!' The camera moves around what you initially feel.

The biggest difference for me was that I operated almost every frame on 'Mudbound,' and I didn't operate on 'Black Panther.'

I do like being in front of the camera more and more. Having experience behind it has taught me about lighting and angles, how to move, and what looks good and what doesn't.

Film gives us the luxury of deciding where the viewpoint of the audience is, and by knowing that, we can very effectively design around what is actually seen on camera.

As a DP who mostly does features, I'm normally in a director's pocket, 24/7.

I don't cover my scenes. We approach it visually. Sometimes we go out of our way to do awkward blocking so that we can tell whatever the emotional heartbeat is of that scene in the most interesting way possible.

I really enjoy blocking and staging. I think most of visual storytelling is camera placement and how to stage action around the camera.

Having been a cameraman, I think about, 'Well, if this was real, how would this be shot?' I try to inject as much realism as much as possible.

The Wachowskis' use of space rivals that of musical directors like Gene Kelly and Mark Sandrich.

We build camera rigs tailored specifically to the story we're trying to tell or the shot we're trying to capture.