Craft
Camera movement is a verb, and it needs a reason
A moving camera changes what a shot means. The difference between a dolly, a crane and a handheld frame is a difference in point of…
Idris Bello
Craft writer, After the Trailer
Idris writes about editing and sound design, and can explain why a cut feels wrong.
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10 articles
Craft
Focal length changes a face before it changes the frame
Lens choice is usually discussed as how much fits in the shot. Its stronger effect is on facial geometry and apparent distance.
Craft
A score is written last and spends its life fighting the temp track
Composers arrive after the edit, work to a deadline nobody else has, and are frequently asked to reproduce music already cut into…
Archive
A great deal of early cinema simply does not exist any more
Loss on this scale was not an accident of neglect alone. Film was destroyed deliberately, for storage costs, silver recovery and…
Archive
Every home format changed what you were allowed to see
Aspect ratio, running time, censorship, music rights and picture quality have all been altered to fit whatever box the film was…
Craft
Every prop is made more than once because takes destroy things
The property department builds duplicates, tracks consumption and keeps objects legible under a close lens. Continuity failures…
Craft
Second unit is a parallel film with its own director
A large production runs more than one camera crew at once, shooting different material in different places. Matching them is a…
Craft
Motion capture records a body, and the character is built afterwards
A capture session produces movement data, not an image. What arrives on screen is the result of retargeting, animation and a long…
Archive
Sound on film was a photograph of a waveform, and it aged like one
For decades the soundtrack lived beside the picture as an optical stripe. How it was recorded explains both its character and its…
Archive
Half the work in an archive is establishing what the film even is
A large proportion of surviving material arrives unlabelled, mislabelled or in fragments. Identifying it is detective work with…