Tarsem Singh Quotes

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

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 think what makes a good actor's director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie.

I enjoy setting the scene and coming up with interesting frames. 'True Detective' was a very hands-on set.

A lot of the time with an independent production, you go onto the set, and you rehearse it in front of the crew, and at that point, the cinematographer takes over. You start accommodating the camera instead of the camera accommodating you.

It's one of the things I love about my job: it's my job to help a director tell the story, to just be willing to help.

Filmmaking is a very collaborative art. Unlike a painting that an artist paints sitting by himself, as a director, you have to work with a team.

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

Some directors don't get involved in the cinematography and are just about story, but I'm definitely more tactile than that in terms of my involvement in the minutiae.

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.

In making films, you're dealing with hundreds of people and a crew, but eventually, it's you and an editor, and that part of it, I liked it a lot. The experience on 'Up in Smoke' was great. I really enjoyed it.

Part of the process of acting in a film that you're also directing is really trusting the people around you to capture your vision, which hopefully you have communicated well to them.

A good script and a good brief from the director is enough to let me know what is expected of me.

I was very glad later when I was directing that I wasn't in the hands of a cinematographer and hoping that he would do it well. I would know what he was doing, and we could discuss how that scene would look.

I love David Fincher - even though it was just two scenes, I loved the way we worked and could tell by the way he was shooting it that this was going to be an affective movie to say the least.

There is the danger of over preparation, of loss of spontaneity; over rehearsal is the most terrible thing you can imagine. We do have a very close association between costume and set designer, though. And the cameraman is very important, of course.

I provide the bricks and mortar with the words and situations - the director and the actors and the designers build the house.

I don't actually like blocking actors. I prefer giving actors freedom. They don't have to step on a precise mark with me. Instead of giving marks to the actors I like to give marks to the camera.

Fundamentally, whether directing in the theatre or a film, you have to be a good storyteller, regardless of the form. The thing I had to work hardest at was thinking in shots.

Great art direction is NOT the same thing as great film direction!

I went to film school, trained as a director, have made a lot of movies, and taken a lot of photographs, so I tend to envision things spatially. As I'm working, I need to have a map of the space. I need to know what's happening in all corners simultaneously.

I think directing is something I would really enjoy.

I love the process of working with a filmmaker and the writers and the actors.

I always like to hang out with whoever's directing and watch what they do. I hang out at Video Village, the area where the directors and the writers and script advisors are.

With Hitchcock, you work with a script, and you stick to it.