Doing Action Justice: Watch How Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop Gives Excessive Action the Treatment It Deserves (Video)
If Paul Verhoeven has taught moviemakers anything during his time spent directing blockbusters, it’s that action and violence can be as meaningful as they are lean...
Visual Framework: Watch How Wong Kar-wai Uses Frames Within Frames in In the Mood for Love (Video)
An integral aspect of Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai’s mastery is his recurring use of frames within the film frame. The below take, by Evan...
Dream On: Watch How Ingmar Bergman Laid the Groundwork for Cinematic Depictions of Dreams (Video)
From Maya Deren to David Lynch, the cinematic “fever dream” has been conjured by many, but mastered by few. Ingmar Bergman is undisputedly among those...
Need For Speed: Don’t Write Off Using Differing Shutter Speeds In Your Project (Video)
A comprehensive filmmaker’s toolkit is grown slowly over time: picking up technical knowledge here and there until one is equipped to really play around with...
Shedding Light: Watch This Enlightening Breakdown of DP Janusz Kaminski’s Signature Lighting Techniques (Video)
For every production, there are existing sets, and then there are additional set layers whose creation depends upon harnessing those sets’ light sources. Frequent Steven Spielberg...
Subverting Rom-Com Expectations: How When Harry Met Sally… Dances Around the Conventions of Genre (Video)
“When Harry Met Sally… shows how a clever writer can flip genre conventions to create a fresh take on a classic story.” In his video...
Frame of Mind: You Need At Least One Big Scene To Sell Your Movie, Says Black Rose Director Alexander Nevsky (Video)
What makes a scene work? Does it lie in the carefully executed plans of a film’s cast and crew? Or does the magic rest upon fortuitous mistakes, spontaneity and...
The Magnificent Anderson: Tour the Weird Wonder of Wes Anderson’s World With These Supercuts (Video)
With one of the most distinct eyes in cinema, Wes Anderson has been gracing screens with his playhouse-styled, candy colored visuals for the past 20 years....
Impressions of Depression: Watch How Lars Von Trier Manipulates Cinematic Time to Convey Mental Illness (Video)
Slow motion: For people with clinical depression, it’s the human brain’s own in-built special effect. A sense of warped, skewed and elongated time is often...
First Draft: Rewrites Aren’t the Only Way to Improve Your Screenplay. Try Rearranging It Instead
In partnership with Creative Screenwriting and ScreenCraft, “First Draft” is a series on everything to do with screenwriting. We’ve all been there before. We’ve labored through draft after...
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Inside the Issue: Best Of
The Best Film Schools in the U.S. and Canada 2017: Film Programs to Shape You Into the Next Moviemaking All-Star
Perhaps you’re someone who dreams of a career in moviemaking, and has come to the realization that the discipline, experimentation and personal relationships that flourish in an academic setting are...
7Inside the Issue: Cinematography
What’s in Your Kit? The Underwater Gear Used in Jeff Orlowski’s Gorgeous Environmental Doc Chasing Coral
How do you show irrefutable proof that the world’s coral reefs are rapidly dying due to climate change? Director Jeff Orlowski’s feature Chasing Coral follows an impassioned team of...
Inside the Issue: Directing
Of Bad Apes and Twisted Revenge: Matt Reeves, Steve Zahn, Weta Digital and Others on War for the Planet of the Apes
Actor Steve Zahn—known for his roles in That Thing You Do, Riding in Cars With Boys, and Dallas Buyers Club—once stumbled onto an online post about his role in...