Waiting 2B Scene

Tag: Video montage

  • Video Montage: “You Just Don’t Get It, Do You?” (Jeff Smith)

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to share a fairly comprehensive video montage compiled by independent filmmaker Jeff Smith while he worked under the former film blog FilmDrunk (now an integrated part of the Uproxx machine).

    We have all endured the time-wasting ravages of poor film-making. Genre, acting, writing, editing, CGI… the lists that have been made to scorn the worst films are in abundance! And really, this montage is tipping it’s hat to this time honoured tradition of naming and shaming. Where it differs is in the manner with which it dispenses the shame. Rather than stick to the script of a “top ten” or “25-worst” list – this fun little montage rather cleverly shames one of Hollywood’s cheesiest go-to lines: “You Just Don’t Get It, Do You?” (and variations thereof). Packed with 102(!) examples of this writing cliché at its dreadful best – regardless of film (blockbuster, cult-hit, international film, or whatever) – I hope you can have a bit of a laugh at this throw back clip from 2011!

  • Video Montage: Everything is a Remix (Wilson)

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to take a jump back in time – to do a remix, if you will. If you aren’t concerned with the violence and blood-letting that has become something of a trademark for Tarantino’s work, then join me in revisiting an excellent video montage by editor Rob Wilson that explores Tarantino’s 2003-2004 masterpieces, Kill Bill 1 & 2.

    Over the years, my own anecdotal evidence has highlighted an interesting recurrence. There are most often two fields of thought when it comes to Quentin Tarantino: people either love him, or hate him. It seems that the rarest of the Tarantino consumers is someone like myself however – and that is one who is neither a lover, nor a hater. In my own case, I have enjoyed his work overall – though, I can’t just chow down on some Tarantino… I must be in the right frame of mind to choose to watch his work. The exception to that rule is Kill Bill. I unexpectedly fell in love with it!

    I had a recurring sense of déjà vu throughout the whole piece: “I’m sure I’ve seen (something like) this before!” But why? Like the montage below, watching the Making of Kill Bill revealed a lot. Tarantino went to extraordinary lengths to echo genre cinema. It is quite fair to say that almost every element of the film was used to both tell Tarantino’s story, and simultaneously pay direct homage to various forms of genre cinema (such as martial arts, spaghetti westerns, anime). And that is why I loved it. I have not seen anything come of Hollywood that quite matches Tarantino’s attention to so many cinephilic details as this. That is why I am happy to revisit this classic Tarantino film today – and I hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane too.

  • Video Montage: Psycho Close Ups

    Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to share with you a video montage that was compiled by a Canadian film enthusiast who goes by the pseudonym Roman Holiday.

    In this piece, we’re taken exclusively into Alfred Hitchcock’s use of the close-up in his classic film, Psycho. I love it! Close-up action gives us more details, and can take us into the mind of a character, perhaps more than any other shot! In real life we only let people that we really trust get THAT close to our face (mothers, children and lovers, usually), and we will also only get that close to an object if we’re intent on finding out more information about it.

    A well orchestrated close up shot can easily become quite a powerful visual effect in itself. Of course – Hitchcock was the consummate master of visual story-telling: so I hope you enjoy this montage of his work as much as I did.