Stefon Diggs Quotes

I put in a lot of work in film study.

I'm really fascinated by other directors' methods. I've done a lot of learning by observation.

When I shoot a film, I take my camera and put it among the characters and let it show you their world, their problems, their happiness and the little things that matter to them.

I love films for the fact that it is like working under a microscope. It is sort of like a laboratory.

The process of filmmaking is very musical, you get into the rhythm and the rhythmics of how someone is, especially with Woody Allen who is very much into body language and body movement.

I don't study films particularly. I plan to direct, but I'm not watching film - I watch the entire film to see how the story goes, but I don't say, 'Oh, so he does a slow pan here, or he pulls here, watch the crane shot, or look at the composition,' because it's got to be my eye.

I have definitely been curious and involved in the process; even as a young actor. I was always looking at where the camera was, what story it was telling. And as my experience grew, I wanted to know even more.

We can bring it all down to the subtleties of the shifting of an eye because we know the camera will catch it. That has been a great thing to learn, and it makes it interesting for a guy who has been in it as long as I have.

When you cut from a long shot to a close shot, you're doing it for a reason, or if you let something stay in long shot for a long take. On the short films, I was teaching myself how to express something personal cinematically, how to use the language of film the best I could.

I was always very interested in the storytelling decisions that went into directing. It just held this real allure for me. You know, if we're doing a scene at a dinner table, they weren't all shot the same. 'Why was the camera here for one moment and there for another?'

With CG, I can do more and be sillier. In 'Diary,' there's a scene where they hit a guy with acid, and the camera is never off him, and you see it gradually eat through his skull and get all the way through his brain. That's fun, too.

The great thing about 'Fargo' is that it's a more objective style of filmmaking: the camera moves in very classical ways, and the most interesting things normally are the characters.

I don't use film in the way that the great auteurs do. I use film, the camera, to record as effectively and as perceptive as I am able what I want to say through the actors.

If you know how to shoot a scene, then you know how to shoot an action scene. If you've seen an action movie, and you watched it, and you paid attention to how scenes are constructed and where the camera is and how the camera moves, then you know how to do it.

I like Rob Morgan in 'Mudbound.' Most of the attention being paid to this movie has focused on Rachel Morrison's cinematography and Mary J. Blige's stiff but intensely stoical performance.

As the director of a film, as the story teller, you have to keep your voice alive.

If I want to make people moved or cry in a film, I figure out what the room looks like, what the people are wearing, what time of day it is, what the light is, how to photograph it, where to put the camera. It involves optics and costume design and set design and architecture.

'Piku' was driven by subtleties. Most films come with the padding of the sound, the visual, the drama.

The key to making good movies is to pay attention to the transition between scenes.

Scorsese would talk to me about this movie 'The Heiress' with Olivia de Havilland. We were talking about this scene in it, and suddenly we were rolling. It was very intentional, and I didn't realize - because we talk old movies all the time.

As a cinematographer or director, I'm always looking for projects that are able to say a lot with the actor's expressions.

I look at films every day. I study. I coach.

I study myself. I study film, and I make sure that everything's on point.

I want to challenge my cinematography and my editing.

The way I'm used to telling a story is by looking through the viewfinder and being really close to the actors.