Top 100 On Camera Quotes

#1. I only shoot on film. I like the quality, the grain and the imperfections. It offers me something much more rewarding than any digital camera can give me. I believe the extra expense is worth it.

Guy Berryman

#2. I hate seeing fat girls on TV or in movies, because the only way the world seems to be okay with putting a fat person on camera is if they're miserable with themselves or if they're the jolly best friend. Well, I'm neither of those things.

Julie Murphy

#3. They don't tell you how to be on TV - they put the camera on you, and they turn it on, and you sink or swim.

Michael Strahan

#4. As women, we do feel like we have to live up to an expectation, whether it's on camera or going to the market or whatever it is. And the truth of the matter is, that's not always the way it is. We don't always have our high heels on, we don't always have our makeup on.

Jennifer Aniston

#5. There is an expression here on Capitol Hill," Issa told me. "'Don't ever get between a member and a camera.'" That can be particularly harrowing in the case of Issa, who had purchased a T-shirt for Bardella that said: "It's all about me.

Mark Leibovich

#6. I'm an actor, and I like having attention, I guess. There's a reason I like being on stage. There's a reason I like being in front of a camera. It's that interaction.

Tatiana Maslany

#7. I don't remember the first picture I took, but I actually found a picture of myself on a trip back to my old family home in Malaysia. I'm five years old, sitting on the floor with the family camera in my hand. It was a film camera - not a DSLR - with a fixed lens and a nice manual zoom.

Ren Ng

#8. It had rained on some vivid green ferns in Maine and it was quite beautiful. I was moving the camera slightly and studying the ground glass. Looking at those 20 square inches, trying to find out just what were the right elements to include.

John Sexton

#9. When I was working on 'Men of Honor' with Robert De Niro, there's a pipe that he has in the movie, and it took us about six weeks to find the right pipe for him to use and feel comfortable with. It was a great choice, because it was really about what worked with the camera at that time.

George Tillman Jr.

#10. There are three possible scenarios when it comes to your stilettos and sex: (1) You could wear your stilettos without having sex. (2) You could have sex without your stilettos on. And (3) you could have sex with your stilettos on, preferably at my house, and bring a camera.

Michael Makai

#11. Of course, it's wonderful to film any period piece - but especially 'Foyle's War' because the art direction is so imaginative and yet at the same time so real. You can open a drawer on set, and even though the camera never sees what's inside, it'll be filled with genuine 1940s documents.

Honeysuckle Weeks

#12. I wish I could be the black woman Soderbergh, and put the camera on my shoulder and shoot beautifully while I directed.

Ava DuVernay

#13. I hate cameras. I hate cameras and I hate camera phones. The camera's my worst enemy and my best friend. It's the way I convey my emotions to the world without saying a word, so I use it. People always say, 'You come alive as soon as the camera's on!'

Nicki Minaj

#14. The first dolly track was somebody who had the idea to put the camera on a boat on a canal. So the boat would move very slowly but steadily. So they would see all that surrounds you and you'd see the landscape changing slowly. So that was the first time.

Michel Gondry

#15. The less friendly your relationship is on camera, the more useful it is to be friends with them off camera.

Harry Lloyd

#16. People who have never done theatre before, and have only worked in front of a camera, would find it very difficult, I think, to know how to command a stage and work with the logistics of being on stage. They're very different. The theatre is quite tricky, actually.

David Wenham

#17. I spent every day just praying that I didn't look like a big dork on camera.

Lara Flynn Boyle

#18. I'd have conversations with the camera crew about what was going on in the scene, so that they were prepared to shoot it. I love the fact that when you work, you create this tribe.

Susan Sarandon

#19. Someone comes and drags you in front of the camera, and they're already saying, "Okay, we got it. Moving on." You get one or two takes. So it's a tough job.

Kurt Voss

#20. I realized that my camera work could help me in a lot of ways to put the audience in the driver's seat, so to speak, to get them in there with the action, and to get them as close and be as intimate with what was going on on-screen as possible.

James Wan

#21. I loved being on the other side of the camera. I loved watching another actress in the spotlight, do an extraordinary job, and I loved making her beautiful and interesting, protecting her emotions, and showing people her talent.

Angelina Jolie

#22. Richard Leacock and I ran into a guy who knew how to carve up a camera, and we had him carve one up for us. We had him chop it down and change the gears from metal to plastic, which would cut down on the sound it made when it was running.

Robert Drew

#23. I love improvisation. You can't blame it on the writers. You can't blame it on direction. You can't blame it on the camera guy ... It's you. You're on. You've got to do it, and you either sink or swim with what you've got.

Jonathan Winters

#24. Biologically, I'm lucky - an angular face and dark colouring which shows up well on camera.

Robert Carlyle

#25. Sometimes we work so fast that we don't really understand what's going on in front of the camera. We just kind of sense that, 'Oh my God, it's significant!' and photograph impulsively while trying to get the exposure right. Exposure occupies my mind while intuition frames the images.

Minor White

#26. I'm quite shy. Television presents an amplified version of yourself. When I'm on camera I'm pumping more adrenaline, I'm being a bit more engaging than I am in everyday conversation, but that's normal, isn't it? Otherwise nobody would want to watch.

Kevin McCloud

#27. The more you go on, the less you need people standing between you and the animal and the camera waving their arms about.

David Attenborough

#28. When a guy writes a scene where a woman does a deviant sex act on camera, it's objectifying. But when a woman writes it, it's feminism.

Whitney Cummings

#29. I have a great little camera, and I had a theory that if the story is interesting, it doesn't matter what medium you shoot it on. You just have to make a good film.

Tamra Davis

#30. TV is a different animal. It's not a club set. As you said, you do short sets on TV - about five minutes. So you have to get that rhythm down and also be aware of the camera so you're connecting with the viewers at home as well as the studio audience. It's a different muscle to develop.

Ted Alexandro

#31. I'm funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while.

Gene Wilder

#32. Whether I am on a stage, behind a guitar or in front of a camera, I get paid to misbehave. Fortunately, misbehaviour is something I have unlimited supply of.

Vir Das

#33. To be a series regular for two seasons taught me so much about what it takes to be on a TV schedule and work those kind of hours and just work in front of a camera in general.

Megan Hilty

#34. Some directors are really strong on action, manhandling you around the set; others are very focused on setting up the camera shots and practically ignore you. You have to get used to introverts, extroverts, directors who clown around for the crew, and the odd one who's monosyllabic.

Gina Bellman

#35. One of the best things - and something I'm grateful for every time I walk onto a film set - is my six and a half years on Dawson's Creek and the experience it afforded me in how to get comfortable with the camera.

Michelle Williams

#36. My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.

Edward Weston

#37. Improvisational things about picture-making ... learned from working with the small camera early on have served me well in being able to think quickly when making [portraits].

Dawoud Bey

#38. If I or any other black can deliver at the box office, I'll get a lot of work. Too many young actors, regardless of their color, try to play an attitude on camera and fail to remember their job is to fit into an entertainment.

Mario Van Peebles

#39. So about twenty years ago I gave up on painting - and got into terrible debt after buying a load of camera gear!

Nigel Dennis

#40. I've worked with actors who treat the first two takes like rehearsals. And that's okay. If the camera is on you and we're doing a scene where I'm off camera, I'm treating that as a rehearsal.

Alfred Molina

#41. You travel to lush looted countries. parts of earth laying on their sides. barely breathing. hot with rust, infection, and tourist anemia. you and your camera arrive. start tearing at bodies with your lust. it's harmless. appreciating culture. sharing. honoring clothing. the way certain skin exists.

Nayyirah Waheed

#42. The job is the same - to attempt to make it sound like you've never said it before and as if it's just occurred to you. And that's the same whether you're on camera or whether you're on stage in a room full of people.

Bill Nighy

#43. Over and over again-in the movie, I have nine different people who have worked for Fox News network who have come forward and talked on camera, three of them anonymously, by the way.

Robert Greenwald

#44. When I first moved to New York I had been trying to work on anything and everything I could. From extra work and commercials to short and student films so I could learn in front of a camera.

Pawel Szajda

#45. They got a lot of kids now whose uniforms are so tight, especially the pants, that they cannot bend over to pick up ground balls. And they don't want to bend over in television games because in that way there is no way their face can get on the camera.

Casey Stengel

#46. When the camera comes on, I am not Hayden any more, I am Lizzie!

Hayden Panettiere

#47. I don't really diet or anything. I'm miserable when I'm dieting and I like the way I look. I'm really sick of all these actresses looking like birds I'd rather look a little chubby on camera and look like a person in real life, than look great on screen and look like a scarecrow in real life.

Jennifer Lawrence

#48. Working on television is therapeutic to me. When that camera comes on all negativity vanishes. I forget about the fight I had with my neighbor. I forget about the pain in my left foot. I forget about my dog dying. Performing, for me, is an emotional cure all.

Todd Newton

#49. On my iPad, and I'm quite a fool for this, but I use Post-It notes to cover up the camera. It's just weird with that little eye there and sometimes it'll be green and I know I didn't turn it on. It's very spooky.

Taraji P. Henson

#50. The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.

Ernest Borgnine

#51. Most actors are lucky to ever get a job, period. I never forget that, because I have so many actor friends in L.A., and most of us barely ever work. And those of us that do, it's still only 60 days out of the year that we're actually on camera. It's an absurdly low number.

Emile Hirsch

#52. I know how to tell a story to a thousand people. Sometimes I don't know how to tell a story to a piece of tape on a wall and a camera.

Katie Finneran

#53. I went to college and got my degree in acting, but because it was all theater, I really consider my first couple years on 'Mad Men' as amazing training for working in television and for acting on-camera.

Gillian Jacobs

#54. I was one of the first veejays to take the camera out on location, and that's what was unique about MTV at that time.

Pauly Shore

#55. He's a very funny and very nice man. When you read the script, you want to stick with it. But when you're with Eddie Murphy you've got to improvise. He's always making jokes and making me crack up when the camera's on.

Raven-Symone

#56. My mom had gotten a Super 8 camera to make home movies with, and my brother and me got our hands on it and ran with it.

Lev Yilmaz

#57. Sometimes you're not always on or at your best, especially during auditions. So if you go in and you don't nail it, even if they're like, 'We don't need to see you again,' get a friend, get a video camera, and film you doing the stuff again.

Jack Huston

#58. Even if people are all from the same place, there can be very, very different approaches. It's one of the things I'm fascinated by. It's why I like directing. I like to see how different people approach trying to be truthful, on camera or in the theater, and whether you can make them match up.

Kenneth Branagh

#59. I usually befriend the camera department very early on in the film and drive them nuts. I'm constantly bombarding them with questions and going through the stills photography. A film set is a great place for me and I love it.

Eric Bana

#60. I think videos are really hard. I'm yet to be happy with a video. It's very weird watching yourself on camera, which I guess I'm going to have to get used to. I love the thought of being in them, but it's one thing to say that and another to actually do it.

Conrad Sewell

#61. I feel every shot, every camera move, every frame, and the way you frame something and the choice of lens, I see all those things are really important on every shot.

Roger Deakins

#62. I often go out on the street with my camera and ask questions.

Beeban Kidron

#63. Why Jackie?" Robert said. I was glad to see he had already moved on to his next neurotic worry. "Why does she get on camera? I mean, I can laugh harder than she can any day.

Jeff Lindsay

#64. I worked on 'Sarah Connor' even longer than 'Firefly.' And I always remembered how generous everyone was to me when I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know the rules, and I didn't know camera angles, and I didn't know lighting.

Summer Glau

#65. I knew from the first moment I picked up a camera, on my first school assignment, what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was going to find a way to travel the world and tell the stories of the people I met through photographs.

Mary Ellen Mark

#66. If life were a camera, I'd have the lens cap on.

Charles M. Schulz

#67. The big challenge is looking ripped and lean without being too big because on camera, it's easy to appear thick.

Parker Young

#68. Reporter Jacob Riis made it his mission to expose the horrors of poverty in New York. New to working with a camera, his flash actually set the walls of One apartment inhabited by five blind people on fire.

H.W. Brands

#69. I like to try to shoot in the city in a way that allows the city to go about its business while we're shooting, and that's always a challenge because, unfortunately, people on the street don't know not to look in the camera or interact with the actors.

Noah Baumbach

#70. Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures.

Susan Sontag

#71. I don't pretend to make my photographs speak the truth of what Mexico is all about. But in its villages I can feel the way culture is changing, and it's fascinating to live through it and try to capture it on camera.

Graciela Iturbide

#72. Yes, I have a very small and mostly nerdy fan club. And much to my amazement, it grows a little larger every day. Apparently, these new recruits liked what they saw of my act on YouTube (even though everybody wishes that doofus blocking the camera had a smaller head).

James Patterson

#73. So can I take pictures of you sometime? ... Not here. Not like this. At this abandoned building I just discovered by the beach. At sunset. I have an idea.' He peeks around the side of the camera. 'And not with your clothes on. Only fair.' His eyes are bright as the devil's. 'Say yes.

Jandy Nelson

#74. I love the digital camera because it makes shooting easier and economical. I shoot fast, and I can shoot a lot. I shoot rehearsal; I just keep on shooting nonstop.

Anurag Kashyap

#75. We have parties at my house. My girlfriends and I play our iPods, with all of our favorite songs. We pick our songs and jump up on the counter and dance, and do runway stuff, and we take video with my camera. When I'm with my girlfriends, I act like I'm 19.

Avril Lavigne

#76. You can always tell in a movie when they are setting you up for something. If someone leaves an important object on the table and walks away, the camera will have some way of indicating that to you.

Bill Viola

#77. I have a book! It's called 'How Does She Do It?' and it's 35 years on camera.

Deidre Hall

#78. Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.(page 68)

Brene Brown

#79. The cameras are getting smaller, they're getting more versatile, and eventually, I'm sure you'll have a camera with lots and lots of things on it so you can alter the picture. You could alter perspective.

David Hockney

#80. You don't want to say somebody did a great job of acting. You want to say, "Where did he find that person? How did he get that factory worker to come out of the factory and be on camera?" You want to believe that person is real.

Ronee Blakley

#81. I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go.

Jonathan Demme

#82. Really, voice-over is great. If it paid as much as on camera work, it's all I'd ever do.

Diedrich Bader

#83. No baby boomer has a completely original idea, but after 13 years on 'Today' and another 11 on 'Dateline,' almost 30 years total at NBC, I felt the urge to find out what was 'behind the camera.' I had the feeling there was 'something more,' though 'more' might be less.

Jane Pauley

#84. Yes, we are a producer of cameras, but we understand that at the end of the day, you have to make photos in software. A lot of companies focus on the camera side, and a lot are on the software side. There's a chasm between the two.

Ren Ng

#85. In my years of acting, the one thing I was never able to do convincingly was to laugh on camera. Fake-laugh.

Paul Feig

#86. I always knew I wanted to be in front of the camera. But even after 10 years behind the scenes at CBS News producing live segments, celebrity profiles, and breaking news, I still hadn't been given the chance to be on TV.

Andy Cohen

#87. I was so besotted with '8½' that, when it was on TV, I used to take pictures with my 35-mm. camera of the frames of the film. That was the first time I'd ever really seen Italians on screen.

David Chase

#88. It's pretty amazing to see a guy, while steering at the wheel, suddenly raise his little 300 dollar German camera with one hand and snap something that's on the move in front of him, and through an unwashed windshield at that. (On the road with Robert Frank, 1958)

Jack Kerouac

#89. The incredible cinematography makes 'A Walk to Beautiful' almost like a poem; there is a tenderness on display that seems to emanate from the camera. There is also great sensitivity to the women whose stories are being told - never did I have a sense of the subjects being exploited.

Abraham Verghese

#90. Whenever I am on camera or doing anything on mic, I don't have any process at all. I just do it and, when I'm finished, it goes away. There is no process. I wish there were some techniques to it. I just turn it on and off, and then I go home.

Eddie Murphy

#91. By this Yoshida explains that 'when we look at the actual conditions of this world through the camera's lens, we must deny the random movements of the human eye and restrain the eye's constant movements in order to focus on one point.

Isolde Standish

#92. Judging by the photograph it seemed like I hadn't been there at all. As if it was my camera that had been on holiday, and not me.

Ida Lokas

#93. I took myself out of the business to study film at NYU and the School of Visual Arts. I grew up on movie sets and was fascinated with the camera and behind-the-scenes work. I felt it would help my career as an actor if I knew all aspects of film.

Devin Ratray

#94. I've dealt with a few method actors, and I don't know if should say this, but I think it's a bunch of nonsense. I think it's film acting and you just have to be on when the camera is rolling.

Natalie Portman

#95. The fact that I have a little ten-megapixel camera with me all the time, is way better than having the greatest camera in the world sitting at home on a desk instead of on my shoulder.

David Burnett

#96. A film is born in my head and I kill it on paper. It is brought back to life by the actors and then killed in the camera. It is then resurrected into a third and final life in the editing room where the dismembered pieces are assembled into their finished form.

Robert Bresson

#97. It's flabbergasting. I can understand if you have your legs spread and you're pushing yourself into the camera - that's sexually erotic. But the sensual contours in the male or female shape? Come on, guys, relax.

Helena Christensen

#98. I will never understand why they cook on TV. I can't smell it. Can't eat it. Can't taste it. The end of the show they hold it up to the camera, 'Well, here it is. You can't have any. Thanks for watching. Goodbye.'

Jerry Seinfeld

#99. In America, we have bible-reading applications: every single one of those applications asks permission to turn on your microphone, your camera; it wants permission to read your e-mails and the right to send e-mails wherever it chooses.

John McAfee

#100. I don't really have a favorite camera. I use a Leica and Canon a lot. It depends, especially professionally, on the requirements. But my carry-around camera is a Leica.

Elliott Erwitt

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