Oscar winners reflect on getting gold

But his brash approach to intimate filmmaking, combined with a skillful use of natural light, ultimately caught the eye of top Hollywood names such as Robert Altman, for whom he did three films in the 1970s.

Then came Steven Spielberg and "Close Encounters." However, following the Oscar euphoria, he says, he experienced what he calls the two-edged sword of attention: more calls for bigger projects, and fewer for the low-budget independent films that he prefers.

"After you get that kind of recognition," says Zsigmond, "it's much harder to do the small kind of pictures that are creative and usually more fun."

The smaller budget producers won't call, he says, because they are intimidated and worry he will charge too much. "They also think maybe that I will have too big a head or have too many opinions about how things should be done," he says.

Zsigmond, who has just finished a film with Woody Allen, says he makes a continual effort to let people know that he has not changed. "I'm not a showoff. I don't try to tell anyone anything. I'm just a normal guy," he says.

"The key to being a good cinematographer," says Zsigmond, "is you have to work together with the director and not try to do your own movie."

Good work breeds more work, he says. "I like to please the directors," he says. "I believe that good photography helps everybody. Once you do that, you develop a sort of respect from your people and that's how you get your next job."

Zsigmond says he is keenly aware that in many ways, getting an Oscar is like pulling straws. "It's such luck, really," he says, "because most important, you have to have a great film in a year with not many great films." But, he does admit, the award has had a huge impact on his career. "If nothing else," he says, "you become known around the globe."

When film editor Pietro Scalia won his first Oscar for work on Oliver Stone's "JFK" (his first as sole editor on a project), he didn't even have an agent to thank.

"It was so very early," he says. "That one had a huge impact on my career because I got exposure all over the world." Doors that had seemed unreachable began to open, not just in Hollywood, but in his native country as well. The sweetest moment came when the phone rang with a long-distance call.

"It was from Bernardo Bertolucci's producers," says the Italian-born Scalia. "They said, 'We were wondering if you were available?' Available!" he says, laughing at the memory, "available to Bertolucci? It was a like a dream come true. Things like that just don't happen."

He flew to Italy, where he spoke to Bertolucci by phone from Nepal. "They were already shooting (1993) 'Little Buddha,' and he said to me, 'You must come over to Nepal, now.' " "So," he says, "I was on a plane to Nepal within a week." He looks back on that time as pivotal. A trip to Nepal to work with great artists and people he admires, he says, would never had happened if it hadn't been for the Oscar.

Scalia graduated from the UCLA film school in 1985, intending to be a director, but says he quickly fell in love with the process of editing. "Every day you deal with moments of magic and creation as an editor,' he says. "The film comes together in the cutting room because that's where you make the performances ... come to life," he says. "That's where you put it together so it will make sense to audiences."

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