Gordon Willis: Less is More

"I spent a lot of time on films taking things out. Art directors would get very cross with me. If something's not going well, my impulse is to minimalize. The impulse of most people when something's not going well is to add — too many colors, too many items on a screen, too many lights. If you're not careful, you're lighting the lighting. American films are overlit compared to European ones. I like closeups shadowy, in profile — which they never do these days... What's needed is simple symmetry, but everyone wants massive coverage these days because they don't have enough confidence in their work and there are way too many cooks in the kitchen."

-Gordon Willis, ASC

Jack Cardiff: Lighting & Simplicity

"There are several aspects of lighting. There's a broad sweep that's sort of impressionistic and reasonably realistic, but some of our British cameramen, and the French cameramen, too, were sort of 'itty-bitty'. George Perinal was considered one of the best cinematographers at the time, but he used dozens of lights-- a little bit here, a little bit there-- and it didn't look natural. A big director who had been a cameraman came over from America to do a screen test, and when this director came on set, he said: 'Are you ready, Peri? Peri said, 'Yes.' Then the director said to the gaffer, 'Kill that one, kill that one...' and he killed about 10 lights. Watching that was a lesson to me: Simplicity."

-Jack Cardiff, BSC