Maybe that sounds a bit pretentious, but I think life experience is always more important than technical knowledge.

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.

I don't really believe in the mystery of cinematography - what happens in the camera is what the cinematographers create and all that nonsense.

When you move the camera, or you do a shot like the crane down (in Shawshank) with them standing on the edge of the roof, then it's got to mean something. You've got to know why you're doing it; it's got to be for a reason within the story, and to further the story.

If I am creating the shots from scratch I may have to spend more time holding the directors hand and therefore have less time to finesse the shot or the lighting etc. but it really all depends on the project. Some films benefit from their spontaneity.

I never really considered film as a career, but I knew I didn't want to be a builder. So I went to art college, and it just gradually happened.

All I’ve ever wanted to do is take stills of people, or take documentaries about people, and try to express to an audience how somebody lives next door. You know what I mean? Just how similar we all are as individuals.