A: There was a little video of a young guy in the studio with a camera shooting a lot of movie footage. I thought “that guy should never be allowed to see the light of day again!” Fortunately he didn’t need it; but I think he could have had an accident or died. That’s all about attitude, though. When people are not ready to shoot their movies in a very particular way, you do something different. I started shooting films by myself when I was nine years old, then when I was 13 I became a studio cameraman. I went on to do a lot of commercial work until I was 19, then I made my feature film for an English film company called “The Great Gatsby” in 1961.
Q: What is the role of the camera in your film?
A: I started by using film, and I am an amateur. I think I use cameras much less than I should. Then I would use lighting, and if I could do it, I would.
Q: How did you begin experimenting with film?
A: I started doing short films in my father’s studio at the age of eleven or twelve and then I started to take pictures by myself, then later, when I was 18 or 19, I studied film, and finally made a lot of films. Film is something that doesn’t happen very often to people. I found that there were places where it was very easy to do it and the things were not so bad for me. I did the only commercial film that I know about in 1959, and then after I had spent a period of time in Italy shooting “Romeo and Juliet,” I came back to Hollywood and tried to make my first feature film. I had no idea what to expect either. It turned out that I was working with a great editor, Mike Nichols.
Q: How long did it take to make “Citizen Kane”?
A: It took a long time, it took three years. But I had to learn to shoot by myself, and I did the movie in about a year. The picture was done the day after I shot it.
Q: How do you define “visual storytelling”?
A: I would say “visual storytelling” does not mean visual storytelling with the camera. It is visual storytelling when I don’t put anything in front of the camera, it is when something is put in front of the camera, but it isn’t in front of the
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