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Color Palette Breakdowns of Classic Movie Stills Celebrate Beautiful Cinematography

By Julia Pugachevsky on

While watching Skyfall and finding herself more captivated by the images than the story, Roxy Radulescu decided to look into the colors that comprise various shots in the film. Eventually, breaking down film images into detailed color palettes became a hobby for the graphic designer. Radulescu created the website Movies in Color to house the project, organizing Hollywood’s most iconic, vibrant shots by film and cinematographer. Click through to see color palettes for a handful of classic movies, then visit Radulescu’s site for more. … Read More

Film

10 Contemporary Cinematographers You Should Know

By Jason Bailey on

Movie lovers around the world were saddened last week by news of the death of Harris Savides, the acclaimed cinematographer best known for his collaborations with Gus Van Sant (on Milk, Elephant, Gerry, Last Days, Restless, and Finding Forrester), but whose credits also included Zodiac, The Game, Somewhere, American Gangster, Whatever Works, and Birth. Savides was a true artist, one who brought a distinctive eye and sense of craft to his work, and merged his unique sensibility with the directors he collaborated with. But the cinematographer is often an underappreciated and overlooked part of the filmmaking process, their gifts and style too often solely attributed to their directors.

In an attempt to acknowledge some of the other true artists in Savides’ field, we put together a brief survey of some of the most important working cinematographers today; in the interest of keeping it manageable, we’ve confined ourselves to those who work primarily in American film, and those who are still prolific in the industry. Our list is after the jump, and we welcome your favorites in the comments. … Read More

Film

Video Essay: “Faces: 105 of Cinema’s Most Beautiful Close-Ups”

By Jason Bailey on

When we made our last video essay, “135 Shots That Will Restore Your Faith in Cinema,” we were pulling from rather a large list of suggestions — over 100 movies were named by our commenters when we posed the question  “What are the most beautiful movies ever made?” We worked in as many as we could, but the limitations of time — and the attempt to conform that collection of clips into something resembling a narrative arc — caused us to leave a lot of great movies out. And while the response to that montage was almost entirely enthusiastic, there were a few grumbles that it placed too heavy an emphasis on landscapes and nature shots, and not enough on actors and faces. (In our defense, there’s an awful lot of pretty landscape and nature shots.) So we always wanted to do a follow-up to showcase a few of the titles that got left out (and some of those that were suggested in the comments for the first video); with that bit of criticism in mind, this week’s video essay focuses on actors and emotion, and the kind of beautiful photography that can result when the foreground and focus is on the human face. After the jump, take a look at our latest video essay, culled from 71 titles, “Faces: 105 of Cinema’s Most Beautiful Close-Ups.” … Read More

Film

Video Essay: 135 Shots That Will Restore Your Faith in Cinema [UPDATED]

By Jason Bailey on

A couple of weeks back, we posed a rather massive question: “What are the most beautiful movies ever made?” We came up with ten candidates of our own, but you, the readers, really stepped up, with over 100 commenters (and counting) offering up their own nominees. There were so many great suggestions, in fact, that a simple follow-up post seemed in adequate; instead, we got our hands on our original list, our runners-up, and your picks — a total of 86 movies — and put together some of our favorite images from them for this week’s video essay, a celebration of cinematic imagery that’s particularly needed in the midst of summer blockbuster season. After the jump, have a look at “135 Shots That Will Restore Your Faith in Cinema.” … Read More

Film

Video of the Day: On Top of the Shot

By Alison Nastasi on

Someone was kind enough to make a video montage of cinema’s best overhead shots. Commonly referred to as a “God’s eye view” — since it provides an omniscient viewpoint of the movie’s characters and setting — the camera angle can feel uplifting and floaty, or ominous and suffocating depending on what you’re watching. See if you can figure out which movies are included in the video past the break. … Read More