Rachel Morrison

“A period film is a gift for a cinematographer.”

“I think there's this assumption that everybody would rather be a director, and I don't know that that's the case for me, so we'll see.”

“The only consistency in the work I do is that I try to use cinematography to best tell the narrative and do justice to the character arcs, but not to do it in such an overt way that people are distracted by it.”

“Half of 'Mudbound' were shots I stole in between other scenes.”

“I've had something like seven films at Sundance, one of which won the Grand Jury Prize.”

“I did photography in summer camp; I did it in high school. The only hard decision I've had to make was whether to go towards photo or film. And I ultimately realized that the type of photo I was interested in was actually photojournalism. And it's a very individualist career, whereas film is a very team-driven medium. So that's why I chose film.”

“You can only shoot small movies and documentaries for so long if you want to have a family that you support; eventually, you need to get let into the big leagues.”

“The first female DPs that I was aware of were Ellen Kuras, Mandy Walker, Nancy Schreiber, Amy Vincent, Sandi Sissel, Maryse Alberti and Tami Reiker. You look for a role model as somebody who looks like yourself and is doing what you want to do; they were the handful.”

“My wife jokes that any time I want to take a picture of her, it has nothing to do with her - it's just because the light is really nice. She's usually right. I definitely am somebody who notices the way the light skips off the floor.”

“Surfing is incredible. It's both meditative and physical. I think it was my way into California.”

“The cinematographer's basically translating the director's vision into imagery.”

“I pour my blood, sweat, and tears into a movie. What I always look for is a message and a social consciousness: a relevance to what's happening in our world.”

“When shooting in real spaces, the work of a cinematographer begins where location meets production design meets time of day. No movie light will ever look as real as the sun, so scheduling becomes truly paramount to naturalistic lighting.”