Emily Blunt Quotes

If I'm ever working on a set and anyone talks about a master shot, I say there is no master shot. Before I even went to film school, I learned about movies by being in a British feature film, where everything was shot master shot, mid-shot, close-up. But I reject the idea of a master shot. You don't shoot everything mechanically; you find imaginative ways that serve the action.

I see an incredible abuse of close-ups in many films these days. Why is that?

You talk about what a director, he was smart. He said, Turn the camera on!

All these directors who do different locations forget that one room can be shot from a million different angles and a million different ways. When I direct a movie, I'm going to use that.

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.

The films I love are very precise, and every shot means something; every shot should convey something new.

Partly why I love to operate is that I love to watch an actor within a shot. When you watch a shot, and you know that everything's come together, I feel I'm the first person watching it. I always get pleasure out of that.

I don't think I've succeeded in making any really good films. There are moments, scenes, whole movements that sing. It has all added up to a cinema of sorts, even though I'm still learning my art.

It doesn't matter whether you shoot on celluloid or on digital, you better make a good film.

I'm really specific in the way that I shoot. I've always had a very good sense of what I need in the editing room. I used to shoot in a way that drew more attention to the camera and I've tried, in each film, to draw less and less attention to the camera. I think when you pay attention to the shots, you're aware of the fact that there's a director.

Get the overall. Some of my films may have been crude at times, or tough, or missed the points, but I've tried to get the overall in. I think that's more important. You may miss a thing or two, but you move faster. If you can do it in three takes, do it in three takes.

I think maybe making films is something innate you can't really teach to begin with.

I'm learning about filming, and just conceptualizing as well. I think it's a good artistic inroad, even to music as well.

I don't like reverse-angle shots - I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.

The thing about film is it is a very precise form. You know if you have it and you know if you don't have it. There's not really a middle bit where you're like, "I think we kind of have that scene."

Everyone that I meet always wants me to direct, but whenever I think of directing, I think of aligning shots. I'd definitely have to write and direct something. But I don't know if I could.

Filmmaking isn’t if you can just strap on a camera onto an actor, and steadicam, and point it at their face, and follow them through the movie, that is not what moviemaking is, that is not what it’s about. It’s not just about getting a performance. It’s also about the psychology of the cinematic moment, and the psychology of the presentation of that, of that window.

Too many people believe in that [Alfred] Hitchcock thing that he only shot exactly the shots he needed for the dialogue he needed and I think that's bullshit, even if that was true for that singular filmmaker.

People will say, 'There are a million ways to shoot a scene,' but I don't think so. I think there are two, maybe. And the other one is wrong.

I'm older and wiser. So and now having segued into filmmaking I'm looking at [Ridley Scott ] and what he does in an entirely different way and I have respect for what he does and how he composes shots. So that was what was completely fascinating.

I think you can say a lot with the movement of your camera but you can also say a lot by keeping it still.

I would love to be able to get behind the camera and direct actors. I think that would be a lot of fun.

I thought of myself as part of the general filmmaking effort. And as my scope broadened, I began to think about directing. I wanted to be the guy who got to say whether the dress is red or blue.

From film to film, even documentaries, I was learning the medium and learning how to bring form into some kind of relationship with the content, how to work it, and above all, how to create some kind of order out of chaos.

You usually get one or the other, you get someone who knows how to tell a story but they don't necessarily know about light and camera and rhythm, or you get someone who can make beautiful images but they can't necessarily tell a great story. He does both and I think he's going to be one of the film-makers that our time is remembered for.