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Painting With Light: A Conversation With Vilmos Zsigmond
From: American Film Institute
| By:
Vilmos Zsigmond |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Cinematographers often describe their craft as "painting with light." They specialize in the visual elements of motion pictures and are responsible for such aspects as lighting, camera lenses and even the type of film stock. Vilmos Zsigmond was one of a  small group of cinematographers in the 1970s--including Haskell Wexler, Conrad Hall, Gordon Willis and fellow Hungarian emigri Laszlo Kovacs--who helped to forge a new level of awareness of the visual aspect of filmmaking. In pictures like McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Deliverance (1972) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)--for which he won an Oscar--Zsigmond set a standard of visual eloquence within the craft of cinematography. |
 he lighting is the most important tool of a cinematographer. Composition and camera moves are important as well, but that's the director's territory. If a director wants to do it himself, then I'm not going to be much part of that. I can occasionally suggest things, but I will be an adviser. |
The lighting has to be mine. I don't think that I want to work with directors who know too much about light, because then I would really be in a position to ask, what the hell am I doing in this movie? What is my contribution? Lighting is everything for me. Lighting creates the mood. |
For example, you want to create a certain mood when you shoot exteriors. If your movie is mostly exteriors, you better study the time of the day, what scene has to be shot in the morning, what scene has to be shot in the evening and what scene has to be shot at noon. It's also different in wintertime and in summertime, so this can become a real problem for us--deciding how to shoot everything at the right time. Unfortunately, many times the director needs more than, let's say, three hours to shoot a scene, and then we are stuck with shooting that scene all day. |
The longer you are a cinematographer, the better you can light. You start knowing that you need an extra light here and there, and you can spend a lot of extra time to perfect it. |
In my early films I didn't have that luxury because there was a production manager who was always behind my back pushing me to finish a scene that we didn't have time to light. So, I learned not to light everything. |
It's very hard for the cinematographer shooting a picture with a major budget, where he has all the money and all the time needed, to turn on one light and tell the director he's ready. But if one light does the job, and it's very effective and very dramatic, why spend two hours of lighting time and end with something less artistic? |
Films are getting better, and so are the lenses. We are really at the point where we can shoot what is there. If you don't like what's there, add some light and improve on it. If you go to a bowling alley or a coffee shop or any place that is lit brightly and with taste, you already have the perfect lighting. Why ruin it by adding more to it? You have to consider that. |
On color, sets and production design
Most of the time in big pictures they hire very good production designers and good costume designers. They usually start working on their own. Then we have a meeting--the director, myself, the costume designer, production designer--and we will talk about the movie: what it should look like, what kind of colors we want to use or what kind of colors we don't want to use. |
We will say, for example, "This should be done in neutral colors--pastels only, no primary colors." It's really a community effort. Many times, a director knows how the whole picture should look. Other times, the cameramen have more to say about it. |
A lot really depends on the production designer. I can go through the list of the movies I photographed, and I did good photography when I had good production designers, and I did bad photography when I had bad production designers. If your production designer doesn't do his job right, you have an immense effort ahead to try to do something good. For example, the sets have to give you plenty of opportunity for lighting--light sources, windows, lamps and all that. That's the primary thing. If I have to tell everything to the production designer, forget it. That picture is not going to succeed with the photography. |
It would be ideal if you could spend as much time on pre-production as possible. Many times a production company does not want to pay for it. It would be nice if the cinematographer could be hired four to six weeks before the movie starts. Then you would have a lot of time to spend with the director and the production designer. You would find them at the stage where they are still looking for locations. |
Many times, they only give you two or three weeks prep, and by that time the production designer and the director have picked the locations. At that point, there is not enough time to convince them that it's not the right location, because, for example, the sun is not really coming from the right direction. It complicates my job if I don't get involved earlier. |
There's another way to do it that I've been doing this for the past four or five years. I try to work during pre-production on a non-continuous basis--I spend a few days on the project six to eight weeks before production starts. Then, I spend a couple of days on the project about four weeks before the picture starts. Then I spend two whole weeks, mostly with the director, while I do other things that I have to do--select equipment and prepare with my crew people. |
The role of the cinematographer
Luckily, many directors need help, and we cameramen usually like to work with directors who need help. But that's, I think, all ego. Nothing's wrong with working with a director who knows 100 percent what he wants. Some directors even light the set, and some even operate the camera. |
There's no such thing as complete freedom for a cinematographer. You have to do the director's film. There's no such thing as a cinematographer's film. If you have a weak director and the cinematographer takes over, the photography is going to be terrific and the film is going to die because there would be nothing there except beautiful images. The images have to follow the story. They cannot be better than the story. If you're shooting in a shack, the lighting cannot be beautiful because it would ruin the mood you are trying to create. Many cinematographers would not like to admit it, but you have to do what the director wants. |
Most of the time, I prefer to select a director to work with--that's what I did for most of my pictures. After I worked with Robert Altman on McCabe & Mrs. Miller, I wanted to work with him again and again, so I did two more films with him. |
I have to get excited about the subject matter, otherwise, I might do a boring job. The possibility for interesting lighting is very important. |
The low-budget movies kept me in training, so to speak. If you don't shoot every day, you get rusty. It's like a puzzle, basically--the camera moves, the actors are moving. You have to keep it all together. If you don't do it every day, you have a hard time getting back to it. |
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