On Letterman and Leno, it always bothers me when they go outside the studio and it's daytime.
If you go into a studio without a set effectively, you've got a blue screen. As a DP you have to light it of what you think it should look like. You don't have any reference of what the background looks like. You might have some concepts, but effectively you're lighting it as what you think it should look like.
My cameraman and I devised a method, which we started using from my second film, which applies mainly to day scenes shot in the studio, where we used bounced light instead of direct light. We agreed with this thing of four or five shadows following the actors is dreadful.
I'm a big believer of daylight in the studio.
I'm going to insult a whole industry here, but it seems like TV is for people who can't do film. I'm not talking about actresses; I'm talking about lighting people. Lighting on TV is just so... it's sinful, it really is.
Glamour really has to do with good lighting, doesn't it?
Throughout my pictures I employ a lighting which is not naturalistic.
I use something that is a real staple in the directing world. It's called a dance floor. You lay it down so that it's so smooth you can roll around, and you can put furniture on top of it. It's seamless and you don't see it.
I believe in naturalistic lighting, which isn't to say natural light.
When I left art college, I was a still photographer for a year.
In Hollywood, the cameraman lights the star. In Europe, he lights the set.
Out-of-doors there is a greater variety of light than in the studio, where the light is always the same. But that is just the trouble; one is carried away by the light, and besides, one can't see what one is doing.
Nothing is so discouraging to an actor than to have to work for long hours upon hours in brightly lighted interior sets.
I share with many people the feeling that there is a sweetness and constancy to light that falls into a studio from the north sky that sets it beyond any other illumination. It is a light of such penetrating clarity that even a simple object lying by chance in such a light takes on an inner glow, almost a voluptuousness.
I had this vision of shooting a great white in the studio with all the edge lights I use for movie posters. I knew that I couldn't bring the great white to the studio, so I had to bring the studio to the great white.
I always have a ring light with me.
I'm a portrait photographer that's used to shooting celebrities, and I usually need time and all kinds of lights and a studio to set up my shots.
The light for drawing from nature should come from the North in order that it may not vary. And if you have it from the South, keep the window screened with cloth, so that with the sun shining the whole day the light may not vary. The height of the light so arranged as that every object shall cast a shadow on the ground of the same length as itself.
My mom was a photographer and whenever they needed a baby for a modelling job, she'd stick me in front of the camera. That's how it started.
You don't need to retouch if you know how to light.
I think people underestimate the importance of lighting - layers of lighting, not just one light. I do a lighting seminar where I take a $300-a-yard fabric and a $3-a-yard fabric. I show what lighting can do to either one.
Most of my images have been done in-studio, under very controlled lighting conditions. There have been a few that have been shot in nature, but even then they were shot almost exclusively at night, and again, under controlled lighting conditions.
The only thing I hate are photo shoots. I just hate them. I don't know why I cannot stand them.
It's more enjoyable to shoot in a studio on a single location with two actors... if they are good.
