Allison Anders Quotes

If you shoot with a billion cameras, then there's no perspective. You want to use one shot at a time, so it's better to discover what that is before you shoot, rather than trying to make something in the cutting room, and then it just becomes generic.

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.

When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it.

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.

If I have to point to something specific with the way I move my camera, I love to do it with a wide lens. I like to show you as much of the space as I can, even if I'm following a character.

The way I work is, I always compose a shot list before I talk to anybody, including my DP. So I'll spend a couple months basically creating the movie in my head, so I have a very solid film in my head, where I know every shot, and I know what the transitions between scenes are.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Every year or so, I try to do something; it keeps me refreshed as to what's going on in front of the lens, and I understand what the actor is going through.

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

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.

Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.

In a movie, you're raw material, just a hue of some color and the director makes the painting.

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

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

I learned a lot about how to shoot and how to put together sequences.

Lesson number one: Pay attention to the intrusion of the camera.

Well, I've learned something from Michael Robison just about maximizing your shots. For example, if I'm shooting a scene and someone's driving at the wheel, you could steal an insert in the same shot.

Every shot is unique, even if it's just a close-up, an insert of your hand. You've got to work with the guy behind the lens to get it right, focus in. Those are critical little nothing things, but you've got to work with the people who are trying to put it down, in order to get it.

With the work that I do as a director, I've got dialogue, camera movement, and character blocking to help create a tone to the piece. In photography, those elements are somewhat void so that tone becomes a bit more subtle but still equally important.

Pictures are much harder to do than the theater... You're at the mercy of the camera angles and the piecemeal technique.