J. J. Abrams Quotes

I was lucky enough to go to an all-boys prep school in upstate New York that had a film program, so we had access to 16mm Bolex cameras, Nagra sound recorders, Arriflex cameras. We even had an Oxberry animation stand!

Motion-picture studio floors used to be all wooden and not smooth at all. This was difficult when moving a camera around on a dolly.

We shot 'Party Girl' on film, and I remember being told, 'We need to get this in two takes because we don't have a lot of film in the mag right now!'

Even back in the '90s, I shot certain things on something that wasn't digital then, but it was on VHS with a smaller camera and we would up it to film.

The helicopter was a U.S. Navy helicopter. There were no civilian helicopters available to film companies, so they just made some stuff out of two-by-four wood. And I would straddle a two-by-four out from the helicopter with a camera and what we call a high hat, which is a low metal stand.

Working in 3D I didn't experience much of a difference, except that the cameras are very big so they can't be moved around with as much ease. It was more like, when you've seen photos of cameras from the 1930s being moved around with these huge cranes. So there was something quite sort of old-fashioned about it almost.

The process of making films is so technically demanding that it's a distraction. You don't spend your time thinking about the philosophical content, which is often very depressing.

People like Chris Nolan are shooting isolated sequences in IMAX. Those cameras are the size of a Volkswagen.

Depending on the budget [whether to use 3D on future movies]. I think I prefer 3D to 2D now. Also, because of 3D I have to use a digital camera, which is the way it's going anyway. That still confuses me, a digital camera versus film.

Well, as far as film, either you're making a film or you're making videos. Digital capture is always trying to emulate the range and look of film. I believe personally that film has more.

If I have an idea I want to put in a movie, I know what camera will make that look best, and I have ideas for future projects and stuff I'd like to build for those. I think it's just part of how I work, though.

I've learned so much from just being in film industry. I definitely want to stay in front of the camera and learn more from as many people as I can. Somewhere down the line, writing, directing and producing would be fantastic.

I have dreams of being a producer, being behind a camera, eating seven tacos for every meal, and making movies that affect people the way they affect me. I don't even need to be in them.

I'm focusing on my efforts behind the camera. I'm doing some producing and directing so that I can make projects for all of the amazing, talented actors and crew that I know.

I learned very quickly that the hard thing in life is to make good films. Technically, filmmaking is the camera and the actor telling the story and that's what I'm more interested in doing.

Cinema is far too rich and capable a medium to be merely left to the storytellers.

The only time I'm totally happy is when I'm watching films or making them.

People think that all cameramen do is point the camera at things, but it's a heck of a lot more complicated than that.

The saving grace of the cinema is that with patience, and a little love, we may arrive at that wonderfully complex creature which is called man.

Film is the best way to capture an image and project that image. It just is, hands down.

In practically every film you experience, you can see the director following the text. Illustrating the words first, making the pictures after, and, alas, so often not making pictures at all, but holding up the camera to do its mimetic worst.

I'm a film geek man. I love toys. I love everything in filmmaking, so for me to just be around this technology is just so cool to watch it being used for the first time, some of the stuff.

In the theater there are 1,500 cameras rolling at the same time - in the cinema, only one.

Movies are not scripts - movies are films; they're not books, they're not the theatre. It's a completely different discipline, it exists on its own. I would say that the beauty of it is it's not the theatre, it's not done over again. It's done in bits and pieces. Things are happening which you can't get again. I forbid anyone to say "Cut", the soundman, the operator, or whatever.

You always learn something about movies. Directing or acting, there's always something new. It's the technological thing; there's always something to learn.