Hiro Murai Quotes

Before I started to make films, I didn't give much thought to the way the characters were physically positioned in the story world.

You don't want to be the guy whose back's to the camera in the emotional part of the movie. So, you have to be aware of the camera movement and what the camera's doing.

I won the Oscar for 'Raging Bull' for those fight sequences. If you look at those fight sequences, those were so incredibly storyboarded and shot in an incredible way - that is the conception a good director has to bring.

The camera must point at the exact spot the audience wishes to look at any given moment. To find that spot is absurdly easy: you only have to remember where you were looking at the time the scene was made.

Raft told me how to walk with him in a scene: We'd start off in a long shot normal, and about the time we got together in a close-up, I'd be bending my knees so I'd be shorter.

Going to directing wasn't a reaction away from acting as much as it was a move towards something I always wanted to do. Ever since I was a kid, I was interested in the camera and how it worked and why one director would place it in this part of the room and then another would place it in that part of the room.

I've storyboarded for things other people have shot. So thinking in shots and orchestrating shots is not foreign to me at all.

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?'

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.

Not every director does this, but I did: I made a list of every shot you're going to set up for every scene in the script.

Try to place the camera somewhere where you get most of the information from there, so you don't need to have too many shots and be too explanatory and expositional about the scene.

The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.

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.

You have to give directors and cinematographers a word blueprint for visuals, but I had to learn that from experience.

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.

An action choreographer is kind of like a dance choreographer. You choreograph the moves and you let the director, cinematographer take into positioning their cameras.

I've directed a fair amount of television series - so I'm always trying to learn new things. One episode was all hand-held and I'm trying to get better at when you should do things and when you should just shut up and watch what the people are saying.

I've always had the utmost respect and awe of what the lens can do and what a director can do with just a camera move.

Usually when I'm making a movie, what I have in mind first, for the visuals, is how we can stage the scenes to bring them more to life in the most interesting way, and then how we can make a world for the story that the audience hasn't quite been in before.

There are some scenes that work beautifully in a moving, sweeping master, which is how I like to work.

As a director, you're looking for ways to tell the story with the whole image and not primarily dialogue.

My two great loves when I'm shooting are working with great actors and composing images.

I believe that the best cameraman is one who recognizes the source, the story, as the basis of his work.

People think that the directors direct actors. No. Really, what the director's doing is directing the audience's eye through the film.

I design my shots. I walk the rehearsal as the camera and say 'this is where I want to be... I want this look.