I think of filmmaking as a form of communication. Maybe it's also an art, but that's for somebody else to decide.

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.

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.

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.

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

Every shot I have ever made has been a compromise in some way. No image has ever been as good as the one I envisioned in my mind's eye.

I want a script to affect me in some way. I am usually drawn to character studies, scripts about real people and the world we live in not some fantasy.