Visual Emotion Is In The Detail

Mads Black — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 21:36:57 +0000

Go ahead, cry your heart out. A blunt visual representation of a certain emotion (like the image of a crying baby) may have the desired effect of making your viewers recognize what it is you want them to feel, but it’s only when you let the emotion live in the details of your shot, that they will really feel all the feels.

CineFix dives into the holy grail of filmmaking in this video essay on emotion and try to pin-point three distinct ways of visually imbuing a scene with emotion.

The biggest take-away from this essay is detail. The old adage goes “show it, don’t tell it” and there is certainly truth to that. But it’s a simplification. Because the reason we want to show it – the emptiness, the loneliness, the juxtapositions, the flaws, the hope, the despair – is that we are telling a story. And stories, no matter how many times they are told, are much better if you let your listener (or in this case your viewer) fill in the blanks and allow their feelings to shape the narrative.

So let this be not just a lesson in cinematography and directing, but also in screenwriting. Write around the obvious and let the emotion live in the unwritten layers.

h/t CineFix

70 Incredibly Beautiful Cinematic Shots

Mads Black — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 19:09:50 +0000

Just in case you’d forgotten, this round-up from BlazePress does a wonderful job of reminding us of the power of composition, and how important it is – if timeless cinematic beauty is your goal – to treat every frame of your movie like a painting.

Some of these belong in museums. Not because they’re antiquated, but because even outside their intended cinematic context, they are simply beautiful. Below are my ten favorites from the list. Visit BlazePress for all 70.

Se7en (1995 – cinematography by Darius Khondji)

Apocalypse Now (1979 – cinematography by Vittorio Storaro)

Big Fish (2003 – cinematography by Philippe Rousselot)

Thief (1981 – cinematography by Donald Thorin)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994 – cinematography by Roger Deakins)

The Matrix (1999 – cinematography by Bill Pope)

The Deer Hunter (1978 – cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond)

Skyfall (2012 – cinematography by Roger Deakins)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968 – cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth)

Life of Pi (2012 – cinematography by Claudio Miranda)

h/t BlazePress

20 Questions Film » The Shawshank Redemption

Visual Emotion Is In The Detail

70 Incredibly Beautiful Cinematic Shots