Some of what I consider my best work, and some of the best films that I've ever worked on, kind of disappear without a trace. There's no accounting for it. Something connects, or something doesn't.
Roger DeakinsRead
Some of the smallest things on a smaller film, to me, are greater achievements than on a big film when you have the resources and the time and everything else.
Interpretation
The value of small achievements can outweigh larger ones when resources are limited.
Roger Deakins emphasizes that the significance of accomplishments lies not in their scale, but in the context in which they are achieved. He suggests that working with constraints can lead to profound and notable results that should be celebrated just as much, if not more, than those accomplished with abundant resources.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming adversity in creative projects.
Some of what I consider my best work, and some of the best films that I've ever worked on, kind of disappear without a trace. There's no accounting for it. Something connects, or something doesn't.
You can’t learn your craft by copying me or anyone else. I hope what I do can do is in some way inspire others but I would be appalled if I thought my work was being studied as ‘the right way to do the job’. My way is just one of an infinite number of ways to do the job.
Am I nostalgic for film? … I mean, it’s had a good run, hasn’t it? You know, I’m not nostalgic for a technology. I’m nostalgic for the kind of films that used to be made that aren’t being made now.
If you shoot with a billion cameras, then there's no perspective. You want to use one shot at a time, so it's better to discover what that is before you shoot, rather than trying to make something in the cutting room, and then it just becomes generic.
Someone said to me, early on in film school... if you can photograph the human face you can photograph anything, because that is the most difficult and most interesting thing to photograph.
There's nothing worse than an ostentatious shot or some lighting that draws attention to itself, and you might go, 'Oh, wow, that's spectacular.' Or that spectacular shot, a big crane move, or something. But it's not necessarily right for the film — you jump out, you think about the surface, and you don't stay in there with the characters and the story.
If you write interesting roles, you get interesting people to play them. If you write roles that are full of nuance and contradiction and have interesting dialog, actors are drawn to that.
Many artists use their own lives as a kind of case study to examine what it's like to be human.
Gardening is how I relax. It's another form of creating and playing with colors.
Acting is largely about putting on masks, and music is about removing them.
Decorating is not about making stage sets, it's not about making pretty pictures for the magazines, it's really about creating a quality of life, a beauty that nourishes the soul.
The secret to film is that it's an illusion.
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