Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Acting, to me, is being given the freedom and ability to play, and that's - that's what I love most about it. I feel very comfortable in playing, whether it be in front of a camera or on stage.
I don't really believe in the mystery of cinematography - what happens in the camera is what the cinematographers create and all that nonsense - I want the director to see what I'm trying to do.
I'm not so funny. Gilda was funny. I'm funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while. But she was funny. She spent more time worrying about being liked than anything else.
I was very camera shy. People like hot girls, so I put my music to hot girls and it just became a trend. The whole 'enigmatic artist' thing, I just ran with it. No one could find pictures of me.
I only shoot on film. I like the quality, the grain and the imperfections. It offers me something much more rewarding than any digital camera can give me. I believe the extra expense is worth it.
A lot of people think theatre must be much harder work than film, but anything histrionic or superfluous gets seen on camera so you have to work to distil it into a complete sense of what's true.
My two boys were the same ages as the kids in the show. In real life or in between the breaks I was raising two kids off camera who were not unlike the two kids who were being paid to be my kids.
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.
In classical oil painting, there seemed to be a radical turn to seeing things as the camera sees them, with that technological modification. I began to have a tremendous problem with all of this.
As an actor you have to have a strong vivid imagination as you're working and when the camera's rolling, but there's certainly a part of you that is aware of real life, that you're making a movie.
I'm glad I took the leap away from acting into going behind the camera because it's much more satisfying - I love acting and I still do, but it's much more satisfying to be able to make the stuff.
When I was younger, me and my brother got a video camera, and he used to direct and I used to act. We used to make these silly, stupid short films, which, looking back now, were probably horrible.
I plan to join the 'SNL' band as a maraca player and stand behind saxophonist Lenny Pickett. That way they will at least cut to me before commercial breaks. I'll be sure to look right into camera.
In the year and a half I was on SNL, I never saw anybody ad lib anything. For a very good reason - the director cut according to the script. So, if you ad libbed, you'd be off mike and off camera.
That first year at Universal was a big blur and, naturally, I thought they were wasting me. I didn't realize at the time that I was learning my craft and acting more easily in front of the camera.
Making a film of a work you've played for six weeks gives you intimate knowledge of the character. By the time you go in front of the camera you've worked out the behavior and life of a character.
In an ideal world, I'd be able to do my shows in my pajamas. Luckily I've got one of the best stylists in the business, Rebecca Allen - she knows what looks good on camera and gives it a sexy kick.
I did take my camera along, as I felt there wouldn't be enough time to draw the things I wanted to do. I did some drawing and did a lot of photography but I was not part of Stryker's outfit at all.
But I can say what interests me about documentary is the fact that you don't know how the story ends at the onset - that you are investigating, with a camera, and the story emerges as you go along.
They both go together; you can't be in front of the camera hosting a fitness television show in front of 75 million households and not have trained 6 days per week year round - in a bikini no less.
I have the insecurities of any actress, I suppose of any woman. Even the most beautiful ones feel unhappy. Look at Bardot: she was suicidal. But I like to play with the camera. I like to ham it up.
I grew up in the business since I was three years old so I've always kind of been in front of the camera and grew up in commercials and I knew that I wanted to do it no matter what, I just loved it.
Tracy and I were pretty good friends before '30 Rock.' The chemistry you see on camera - that's what it is. What you see on camera - that's just friends, so that's why it comes across so well on TV.
I saw that my camera gave me a sense of connection with others that I never had before. It allowed me to enter lives, satisfying a curiosity that was always there but that was never explored before.
Whenever I see a mirror, I just look at myself, or when I see my own reflection, I quickly take a look; I won't lie about that. But when I am in front of the camera, it's just the character, not me.
Frankly, I think I'm marvelous in rehearsal! Then you turn the camera on, and it gets stiff and tight. And then you trudge back to your trailer feeling sad. That's been my experience of film acting.
I just love being in front of the camera making people laugh, cry, entertaining them. It's the 'nasha' of performance that I enjoy. It's my calling, and I'm blessed to be able to do that for a living.
When I'm acting, I'm two beings. There's the one monitoring the distance between myself and the camera, making sure I hit my marks, and there is the one driven by this inner fire, this delicious fear.
I don't know how to be sexy on a date. Put up a camera and a wind machine, and I'll give you sexy. Put me at a dinner table with some candlelight and the moon shining in and, oh, I will give you dork.
I think half the battle is just being comfortable in front of the camera - and I already am, doing so many videos and interviews, so then it just takes that extra step of trying to get into character.
I discovered the 7th art at home when I was kid, through Charlie Chaplin's movies and those of my father who shot documentaries. He was my biggest influence. So I took his camera and started shooting.
The majority of my background is multi-camera format, which is very broad and a very arch perception of reality. Whereas single camera tends to be more truthful and a little more intimate of a medium.
I've always been interested in photography. I remember when I was about 14, I spent an entire summer selling lottery tickets in some little booth so I could make enough money to buy an Olympus camera.
My favorite thing to do as a kid was pretend I was in the opening credits of a sitcom. As the theme song would play, I'd look up at the imaginary camera and smile as my name would flash on the screen.
The ending shot of 'Queen Christina' with Greta Garbo is amazing. She's at the head of the ship, and she's been through so much, and the camera gets so close to her face. That really sticks out for me.
After 2000 or so, I started to realize I wanted to be doing something else. I didn't want to be in front of a camera. I was frustrated. I didn't think I would stop acting, but I didn't want to be seen.
We had the guys from X Men 2 do the cameras. They had a 360 camera that would go from one car, up in the air and over to another car in a continuous shot while the film was still rolling, going 90 mph.
It takes more time and energy for women to get ready to go on camera than it does men, and that means there are fewer available minutes to focus on actually getting the job done. That's a disadvantage.
The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.
And then we watched an amazing number of movies from the late '60s and '70s, which is my favorite time, and we studied their camera movements, their stocks, the way they lit stuff, the colors they used.
I was doing theatre when somebody noticed me and referred me to Raju Hirani. And Raju saw me on camera, and there, I was a heavy guy with long hair. But I got selected for the role of Joy in '3 Idiots.'
I don't get why radio shows allow artists to do shows without creative control, without any art direction at all. Instead of that, I get their press guys, their camera guys to be my backdrop of my show.
When I was a kid, I would make kung fu movies with the kids in the neighborhood, and I would be the guy behind the camera directing everybody, but they were all very silly little shorts and comedy bits.
As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs.
I remember borrowing my mum's Instamatic 110 camera as a kid and doing still lifes of tennis balls and benches and thinking they were going to be something really amazing. They ended up being really bad.
With dancing, you have to know spatial movement with somebody. It is steps. It's literally steps and knowing how close to be or how far away. You have to have the beat in the right place with the camera.
In my head, scenes are shot from certain angles; there are camera pans, all of that kind of stuff. Converting those visuals to comic format was mostly a matter of adapting them to the rhythm of paneling.
I've never liked the moment of seeing something beautiful - a sunset, a moose, an elephant - and then raising a camera and trying to capture it for some future moment. That's always struck me as strange.
I've just written this six-part sketch comedy series, which I've never done before. And I don't know how to pitch it. Am I supposed to just pick up a camera and put stuff on YouTube? Is that how it works?
You're in front of an audience, but you're playing for a camera. There's this huge adrenaline rush, because you know that besides the audience in the studio, there are millions of people watching at home.