Michael Bay, love him or hate him, is an auteur, a director with a definitive and immediately recognizable style that overshadows every film he produces. Every moment of, say, Transformers or Armageddon is coated in Bay’s fingerprints. His frenetic and explosive style has earned him an ignominious place in the film industry, but even more […]
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Newly unearthed first works shed light on famous directorial styles
Directors with large bodies of work often develop distinctive styles. Once you these signatures for the first time, their earlier films become exciting treasure hunts for glimpses of their trademarks yet to develop. You might get a glimpse of the Coen brothers yet to emerge, for example, when watching Blood Simple. If you enjoy playing […]
Continue readingScience confirms that Paul Thomas Anderson is the master of your eyes
The intersection of science and art has always yielded fascinating insights. As much as filmmaking is an art that requires a carefully trained eye and excellent talent to pull off, scientific studies often find surprising and actionable evidence of how we process and respond to images. That might take some of the artistry out of […]
Continue readingLearn the secrets of Disney animation in 3 minutes
Walt Disney once employed a team informally known as the “Nine Old Men,” nine of the greatest animators of all time and the artistic forces behind nearly the first forty years of Disney animation. If you watch classic Disney movies today, their bold and fluid animations are still astounding and a great artistic accomplishment. Two […]
Continue readingFilmmaker IQ whets your appetite with a history of movie trailers
We love Filmmaker IQ and their video crash courses on the history of film. In the past we’re posted about their lesson on aspect ratios. This time around, they’ve prepared a history of movie trailers. You can either follow along in the video (embedded above) or read the article for roughly the same content. Trailers […]
Continue readingFootage surfaces from Jerry Lewis’s disaster-piece The Day the Clown Cried
Perhaps the most notorious film in Hollywood lore is The Day the Clown Cried, the unreleased magnum opus of comedian-director Jerry Lewis. Intended as a moving drama about a clown living during the Holocaust, The Day the Clown Cried is by eyewitness accounts an unmitigated disaster. Harry Shearer, one of the few to see the […]
Continue readingToday in “Is this the future of film?”: Is Making a Scene the future of film?
If we need more evidence that digital distribution is changing the way we make and consume films, look no further than Making a Scene. It’s unusual short film series released by, of all publications, The New York Times. Each film in the series, directed by Oscar-winner Janusz Kamiński, lasts less than a minute and features […]
Continue readingFilm Studies for Free explores fan culture, and so can you!
We love Film Studies for Free, a blog that curates links to openly accessible scholarly film resources. You might notice them in the blogroll on the right-hand side of this page (they’re a little below the Music Library… keep looking!) We wanted to highlight a particularly good recent posting from FSFF about researching fan culture. […]
Continue readingThe Farce is strong with this video: old blooper reel from Star Wars unearthed
It’s nearly customary at this point for movies to include gag reels, either as a bonus during the credits or as a special feature on the DVD release. Hilarious as they may be, outtakes from The Avengers are very much expected. That’s why it’s so unique that this new blooper montage from the original Star […]
Continue readingWhy widescreen? All aspect ratio questions answered in 18 minutes
The average media consumer is probably familiar with two aspect ratios, 4:3 and 16:9. Those are the dimensions commonly associated with standard-definition and high-definition TVs, respectively. Most media we consume has been formatted into one of these ratios for the sake of home viewing, but as you’d know if you’ve ever had to watch a […]
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