Montage by definition is the production of a rapid succession of images in a motion picture to illustrate an association of ideas. In film, montages can really help the narrative progress by telling a long part of a story in a short amount of time. We can see examples of this technique in a variety…

When actors and actresses are on a set/stage they have three walls surrounding them and the camera filming them or an audience sitting in front of them.  The fourth wall is an invisible, imagined wall that separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this “wall”, the actors act as if they cannot. Thus, making it…

Music can have a heavy effect in film. It sets a mood and makes the viewer predict what might happen or heighten the scene already taking place. Music can psychologically manipulate a viewer into thinking one way rather than the way they might have without music. The video below begins with a very corny scene…

Costumes aren’t just for kids on Halloween, they are some of the most vital pieces for a film. Costumes are also necessary to set the mood of the film.  For example, a spy movie would have a lot of people dressed in formal attire. A movie set in the Renaissance would have it’s characters dressed…

I have an interest in drones which got me thinking about the use of drones for creating aerial shots in movies. The common definition of an aerial shot is when the camera is mounted in or on a helicopter or airplane. The aerial shot is a variation of crane shot but from a higher altitude….

While watching HARRY POTTER or LORD OF THE RINGS, we notice that these characters are not dressed up like every day people. In fact, they are dressed very different that what you would see someone walking down the street wearing. What about in western movies when you see people dressed up as cowboys or in…

Transitions in film are the way one scene continues into the next. Most transitions are simple and fast to make the audience not even realize that they occur. Some examples of transitions include cuts, dissolves, fades, and wipes. Good movie editors will use different transition methods and are really good at knowing when and where…

Colorization is the process in which a movie (or photo) is edited from its original black and white to color. The films are digitized and put into a computer program that allows the colorist to see the all the different colors of gray. They are then able to color each frame individually using a palette…

An Alan Smithee Film is when a director seeking anonymity on a film, will use this “Alan Smithee” in the credits. This can happen for a number of different reasons. It can happen when the director control has been tampered with and then the director no longer wants to be associated with the complete film….

Lighting has been crucial to acting since the concoction of plays. Lighting is obviously a necessity to see what characters are feeling, but also with many movies watched at drive-ins, most movies had to be very brightly lit to be visible from their cars. In early Hollywood films, three-point lighting was often used to capture…