Vilmos Zsigmond Quotes About Film
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Using film was so much easier than the digital technology of today. But digital is still at the beginning of what it can be and they'll be fixing all those problems. It's just too complicated - negatives, tinting, flashing - it's a whole new system that takes a lot of time. Of course, it's not as physical. Even the editing. You used to feed a piece of celluloid into an editor. [Digital] is not expensive and that is an advantage, but I must say that I don't love it.
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I should mention Vittorio Storaro, who was Bernardo Bertolucci's cinematographer. You watch those films and they are exceptional.
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Mexican cinematographers Gabriel Figueroa and Emilio Fernandez were students of both Sergei Eisenstein and Toland. Their exteriors and lighting were gorgeous. And the films Ingmar Bergman did with Sven Nykvist were exceptional.
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European films had art. And it was easy to make a European film. They didn't come from the studio system, they weren't shot in sound studios, and that's a good thing, because in the studio system those movies would never have had a chance. And since we were coming from Europe, it was natural for us to use that simple style. Small budgets, less equipment, that was just how it was.
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I think film is about images. Cinema needs good images. I think that if you don’t have good images, it’s not going to be a good film. I think all films should be really visual.
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If you use hand-held techniques just to make the film stylish I think it's wrong.
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You make a film for a million dollars and then it costs $10 million to sell it. That's the problem at the moment with independent filmmaking: You can make it cheap and then there's no money to market it.
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I'm not really satisfied with the technology today. Using film was so much easier than the digital technology of today. But digital is still at the beginning of what it can be and they'll be fixing all those problems.
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When we came to America, the movies here needed a "new wave." European films looked totally different than American movies, which were these lush, glossy pictures with this elaborate production design.
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I like the film camera better because the film is still one hundred times better than any digital image at the moment. So, there are certain movies that you can't really do digitally.
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Jack [Nicholson] really knows about the camera. He's one of the directors who likes to play with the camera. He'll change things around, play with lighting, things like that. He'll even spend hours on the set-up for an insert shot. He's an interested person who gets involved in all the aspects of the films he is making.
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When I was in Hungary in December I was looking at student films and I could not tell which ones were shot on film and which ones were shot digitally. I think that is because the filmmakers in Europe go to four years of film school and learn the techniques.
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I think too many film students in America are losing the artistry and not learning lighting the right way.
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I don't think there is any advantage to digital unless it's in a case like Slumdog Millionaire, where you have to get a shot and a big bulky film camera is out of the question.
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As the cinematographer is usually more visual than the director is and full cooperation is really the answer and to make a great film, you need a good director and you need a good cinematographer.
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There is a difference between creating something and just capturing something. And when we were using film, it was not that fast, and it was expensive, so there was incentive to make sure the shot was exactly right before we rolled. With digital, it's fast and its cheap, and it's easy to bypass the rest.
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A good [film] director is talented, imaginative, and does his homework.
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If you need to strap a camera to you or get in a small space, then it makes sense to use digital.I do think it is possible to use a digital camera artistically, but it can only be good if you are using film technique. Film has grain, and digital has pixels, and there is not that much of a difference, but digital does not replace the need to create a scene and light it properly and spend time considering the shot.
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I think that film is still an artform and it doesn't really matter if you're using a digital camera or a film camera.
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I hope that film is going to stay as an artform and that people won't forget that there are good movies also to be made.
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There is something missing in a lot of digital filmmaking, something I call "poetic reality." That's something you see played out in film noir, where the technique establishes the mood.
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I encourage film students who are interested in cinematography to study sculpture, paintings, music, writing and other arts. Filmmaking consists of all the arts combined. Students are always asking me for advice, and I tell them that they have to be enthusiastic, because it's hard work. The only way to enjoy it is to be totally immersed. If you don't get involved on that level, it could be a very miserable job. I only have one regret about my career: I'm sorry that we are not making silent movies any more. That is the purest art form I can imagine.
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I had never met Woody Allen before Melinda and Melinda. My agent knew the producer of the movie and he suggested that we would work well together and then we did. We had a great time on that film.
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