I think most actors jump at the chance to do something where the camera's on them all the time.
I like when the camera is on me.
I work primarily for the camera-it's not something I really talk about a lot, but it's part of the way I am as a movie actor. The camera is my girl, as it were.
When I work, I really try to get absorbed in the character. Unless I want to do something playful with the camera, I'm not too worried about where the camera is or positions.
When a regular camera focuses physically, what the regular camera is doing is adjusting the lens relative to the sensor to bring different parts of the scene into focus.
Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.
Basically, with a regular camera, you have to take time or allow the camera to focus before you take the shot.
When I got on my first set, I watched what the cinematographer was doing, and at that level in film school, the cinematographer has the most control. They're the one looking through the viewfinder, carrying the camera, framing the shots.
We're trying to get good pictures. Don't worry very much about what I say.
I've tried to stay out of the frame more as a director.
The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.
I knew if I continued to look around it would be difficult for me to contain my own emotions. So I turned away from the red eyes of the crowd and looked only at the red eye of the camera, talking to all the nation.
Obviously, doing TV and doing theater are completely different because they're two totally different mediums. On stage, you worry about your voice and how you move physically. On TV, something like an eye twitch is what they could be looking for from you because it's so contained.
Nobody put the camera on the background singers who were singing. It was on Stevie Wonder. It was on Elton John. It was on whoever was the lead singer out front. We were 20 feet from stardom.
I don't like to put too much effort into things. I find that once you get involved with special effects it is no longer about what is happening in front of the camera and I really want to concentrate on what is happening in front of the camera, like the man apparently peeing on the surface of the screen.
The stage is bigger than life. There you are projecting to an audience. In television, you're drawing the camera in to you. And with TV, there isn't that immediate feedback from an audience. You do hours and hours of taping and never get that response.
I learned quickly at Columbia that the only eye that mattered was the one on the camera.
Screen work always boils down to that moment between the camera and the actor or the actors. It always boils down to that, ultimately. You serve the camera.
DSLRs take beautiful pictures, but they are hard to focus.
I began working with a family camera. It was called a Kodak Autographic, which was one of those things where you flopped it open and pulled out the bellows. And I've been at it ever since; I've never stopped.
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.
The terrain of the face is the most dynamic thing you can point the camera at, to me. I love production design and bells and whistles and all of that. I love a technograin as much as the next gal, but a great actor's face? What else should we be looking at?
You've gotta understand camera angles, camera movement - a kick that may not be very powerful may look very powerful from a certain angle.
If we had an audience to play to, the performance would have gotten too big. Sizing our performances to the camera was an important journey for me at least.
You can have a five-page speech, and if the camera's not looking at you, you're not there.
