Vilmos Zsigmond: Improv Lighting

From American Cinematographer, Learning to See by Bill Linsman (March 1998)

"August of 1976 was the first time I taught in Rockport. Rob Draper was my assistant. Those first few sessions were a bit haphazard; we were just feeling our way. For example, one time we were lighting a parking lot, and suddenly we had a blackout. The whole town went dark. There we were with the camera and lights, and the lights wouldn't work. I said, 'Wait a second. We can do something while we're waiting for the lights to come back on.' We had a lot of students who had their cars there, so we actually staged the scene by the headlights of the cars. People were crossing in front of the headlights, and their silhouettes were going in front of those lights, and the images were just beautiful. We came up with something out of nothing to show that in a desperate situation, you can use anything for a key light."

- Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC