There are many things that define movies directed by Edgar Wright. Brilliant needle drops. Laugh-out-loud moments by the barrelful. And characters subtly telling you at the beginning what’s going to happen throughout the movie. There’s really no such thing as a bad Edgar Wright movie, so consider this a ranking from great to greatest. By looking at each of his films, we can dissect what makes him such an idiosyncratic filmmaker and why each new film he comes out with is met with intense anticipation from movie lovers. We've left his first feature, A Fistful of Fingers, off the list…
Midsommar is Ari Aster’s haunting folk horror film that stunned audiences in 2019. The movie follows a group of college students who travel to a pagan festival in Sweden and get caught up in a terrifying ordeal. If you’ve seen the film, then you know that description doesn’t really do the movie justice, and there’s so much that makes this film such a complex, intriguing work of art. Fortunately, we’ve analyzed every frame to bring you a comprehensive breakdown of what this movie’s really about. Here’s Midsommar explained for all you filmmakers wanting to make your own folk horror masterpiece.…
Whether you want to make YouTube videos or short films, a green screen can take your project to the next level. You can achieve a professional-looking video relatively inexpensively. But after you get your green screen and film in front of it, there’s still the matter of what you’re going to put in its place. Fortunately, the best green screen background videos are readily available from sites all over the web. Some are free. Others cost a little bit of money. All of them help filmmakers make the best video possible.Continue reading Best Green Screen Background Videos — 4K, HD,…
Have you ever wondered how Wallace & Gromit and the works of Laika are created? It’s all thanks to a little animation technique known as claymation. Figurines made out of clay come to life, opening up a whole new realm of possibilities for animators. But what is claymation and how do you know if making your next film out of what’s basically Play-Doh is right for you? It’s time to mold your mind with information about the wonderful world of clay animation.Continue reading What is Claymation — A History of Claymation Movies
Many people thought the last time they would see Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and the rest of Andy’s toys would be in 2010’s Toy Story 3. However, those beloved toys got one final send-off (for now) with Toy Story 4, released in 2019. To come back after a successful trilogy was no easy feat, but as the Toy Story 4 script proves, Pixar had a strong story they needed to tell. With tons of new characters and great quotes (as well as a tear-jerking ending), some franchises are meant to be tetralogies.Continue reading Toy Story 4 Script PDF Download: Characters, Quotes…
Jordan Peele followed up his Oscar-winning horror film Get Out with another horror flick that dealt heavily in social commentary: Us. The movie follows a suburban family who goes on vacation only to discover a group of doppelgangers are out to get them. They soon learn there’s an entire world of doppelgangers hiding within an elaborate tunnel system beneath the surface, and it all leads to a shocking finale. If you haven’t been able to stop thinking about the movie since it came out in 2019, don’t worry. We have all your answers right here. Here’s the Us movie ending…
Before you yell, “Action,” you need to make sure the subject in your frame is in the sharpest, cleanest focus possible. This is known as critical focus, and it makes all the difference in having a professional-looking video and an amateur one. You need the right tools on-set to properly calibrate your camera. Right now, you may ask yourself, “What is a focus chart?” But by the end of this post, you’ll understand why you need to acquire one immediately. Continue reading What Is a Focus Chart, How They Work, and Where To Get One
There’s more than one way to animate a film. And one of the most innovative, albeit time-consuming, ways to bring a movie to life is through rotoscoping. But what is rotoscope animation? While it’s typically associated with modern works like the 2006 film A Scanner Darkly and the recent Amazon Prime series Undone, the technique has roots dating back decades. Let’s take a look at some movies that use rotoscoping to see how it can be utilized for future filmmakers.Continue reading What is Rotoscope Animation? The Process Explained
A variety of lenses used throughout your filmmaking project can help ensure the audience feels how you want them to feel about a given scene. So what is a fisheye lens in your arsenal? It’s one of the most unique lenses out there for how it creates a spherical, warped perception of the frame. The subject looks like how you would think a fish would perceive them. You won’t see this lens all too often in film, but you don’t want to overlook it because the fisheye effect may be precisely what you need on your next project.Continue reading What is…
You can tell a lot about a movie based on its color palettes. Color evokes mood and tone. And few directors understand this quite as idiosyncratically as Wes Anderson. In pretty much all of his films, you could take any single frame and learn so much about the characters or plot. And it all comes down to how he uses color. For this blog, we’re breaking down a single Wes Anderson color palette from each of his movies to see what we can glean across his filmography and how his use of color plays with costumes, character development, and themes.…
