Gus Van Sant Quotes

People who are good at film have a relationship with the camera.

It was 100 feet of 16 mm black-and-white film of a car coming to a stop sign, and driving off. I had to decide how to frame and light it. It was magic. There was a sense of mystery.

I also know what looks good before the camera, how to move the camera, and how to get a story on the screen.

I feel every shot, every camera move, every frame, and the way you frame something and the choice of lens, I see all those things are really important on every shot.

I've made some films that were very much image based: 'Anna Karenina' and 'Pan,' for instance.

Finding where to put the camera is probably the most important thing you have to learn when you're a young director, and it's something that's a mixture of instinct and technique.

I think the way you make a movie dictates the movie that you make.

When you shoot in America, you have huge beams of sunlight in the windows, very vivid sunlight - it's faster in a way.

I was known for a while for doing very long takes, especially after Atonement.

I will always find my light. No question. And if I don't, I'll know, because my dad will be the first person to call me and say, like, 'You need to have him bring another 2K in,' and 'Why aren't you using this sort of lighting gel?' The crew guys know that it's where I grew up.

My photography is mainly focused on my work making movies, which I've done my whole life. I think I have a perspective that not many people have. And I get to take advantage of all of the strange sources of light on a set.

I made short films in school.

On film, you really have to focus on what you're looking at. You're imprinting a physical image.

If you're a documenter, you're taking a video of something in the real world you want to capture. If you're a director, you're trying to create something in the real world.

Half of 'Mudbound' were shots I stole in between other scenes.

The mystery of film is not in the script. It's in the shooting, in the interacting of humans and space and time.

Where we shot in India, you could literally dump the camera off the back of the truck and you'd have an amazing shot.

Unless it's a song and something fancy, I would rather shoot on location.

Having been a cameraman, I think about, 'Well, if this was real, how would this be shot?' I try to inject as much realism as much as possible.

Honestly, if I could shoot everything in 1:33, I would.

Shooting videos is the most intense, full-body experience.

For me, there's far too many close-ups in film. They're a television technique.

Laszlo Kovacs was marvelous. He was very much in the same school as Bill Frake, who was, of course, a great cinematographer as well. They had a very similar style and similar sensibility.

I always direct next to the camera and watch my actors, and so you can see the small things that you can't see on the small screen but you can definitely see on the big screen.

An actor's performance can be improved or shaped - or ruined - by what takes you use, how long you are on the actor's face, what line you put on the other actor's face, and when do you use close-ups or wide shots or two shots.