Rajkumar Hirani Quotes

Yes, if I had it my way I would do all the shots myself - I used to do that when I was just a cameraman, an operator - but there's no way; you can't do that anymore.

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

I was saying as a joke the other day that I love film editing, I know how to cut a picture, I think I know how to shoot it, but I don't know how to light it. And I realize it's because I didn't grow up with light. I grew up in tenements.

The size of a studio film lets you see technology in a way that you wouldn't on an independent film, like the gadgets and the angles and all that.

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.

I think that's the key to being a director: to be able to get the shot and move on quickly.

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

I like finding a great shot and then just staying with it for a long time, not trying to pump things up with some kind of artificial energy by cutting.

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

I may even show up behind the camera. I love to put things together; I love to give direction. I have a great eye for pace.

Directing is more what I would like to get into eventually. Frankly, I feel like it would be a waste if I didn't because I've spent so much time on film sets, and I know how they work, and I love them, and I love leading them. I would like to do that as a director definitely.

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.

TV, it's a director's medium, and they wanna make it look interesting. To be rehearsing mostly for the sake of where you're standing so they can do the lighting, that's what I don't like.

I want to challenge my cinematography and my editing.

The cinematographer's basically translating the director's vision into imagery.

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

My job is to kind of nudge them. Who said it, where, like, '90% of the job is casting,' so all I do is try to come to set and focus on getting all the best shots to cover the story; that's really it.

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

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.

I am very much open to doing cinematography for any talented filmmaker, if the script is good.

TV helped me understand camera angles, close-ups, master shots.

I know what to do with the camera because I see the giant in the camera when I'm operating it live on the set.

That shot in "Into the Inferno" somehow popped up while my editor and I were viewing the footage. I immediately said, "That looks like the opening shot because the camera approaches the action very slowly and we have enough time to insert some of the main credits into it." So it was a practical choice. At the same time, you see these tiny figures standing at the rim of something, and all of a sudden, the camera rises further and you find yourself looking straight down into an inferno.

I'm not the best filmmaker, but on the sets, it seems like everybody is having fun.