Hacker Cinema
Every Frame a Painting
2014 · TV series · documentary · 7 min episodes · 3 seasons
Created by Tony Zhou
Every Frame a Painting is dedicated to the analysis of film form.
9 positive2 neutralfrom 11 commenters
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11 comments on Hacker News
The latter. I don’t think any YouTube movie reviewer is remotely close to someone like Gore Vidal’s level of erudition. (And even he had plenty of faults.) Maybe Every Frame a Painting is the closest thing?
It will most likely cause a "genericization" like "temp music" caused in Hollywood movie music.
See "Every Frame a Painting" for "The Marvel Symphonic Universe": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vfqkvwW2fs
The YouTube channel Every Frame a Painting has an excellent video about music in films. Why are some scores so memorable while others are easily forgotten?
The Marvel Symphonic Universe (2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vfqkvwW2fs
You don't have to have seen any Marvel movies, the insights are universal.
(Also worth watching the follow-up video: Hollywood Scores & Soundtracks: What Do They Sound Like? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEfQ_9DIItI)
This episode of "Every Frame a Painting" does an excellent job of explaining why Jackie Chan's way of doing action is awesome and why contemporary Hollywood (generally) sucks:
https://youtu.be/Z1PCtIaM_GQ
What I love about Every Frame a Painting is the depth of its research. It's quite clear that the creators had an extensive knowledge of film. The videos always include wonderfully selected interviews with the filmmakers that emphasize the point far more than just a person talking. The Deakins interview in Shot | Reverse Shot taken from Cinematographer Style is a nice example^[1]. Or Sidney Lumet's interview in the Kurosawa video^[2]. Taking from film criticism solidifies the video's arguments, creates an amazing rhythm to the videos (Tony and Taylor are clearly great editors) and also prevents the "annoying person endlessly lecturing to me about film" feeling that I get with some other channels.
I've thought about doing videos of my own on various topics (the usage of eyes and glances in Il Posto, Kieslowski's poetry, the reflexivity of In the Mood for Love, etc.) but the YouTube film criticism industry is pretty saturated. Perhaps a different format?
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UE3jz_O_EM [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doaQC-S8de8
Edit: I realize I overlooked the "like 3Blue1Brown" prereq, instead sharing a list of the educational/interesting channels I find worthwhile. The most like 3Blue1Brown will be the PBS ones (especially SpaceTime), MinutePhysics, and Mathologer, for using diagrams to convey abstract concepts.
PBS Space Time and Eons are both awesome:
* PBS Space Time, covers cosmology and quantum physics:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g
* PBS Eons, for geology and paleontology:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzR-rom72PHN9Zg7RML9EbA
* Smarter Every Day, Destin's enthusiasm is contagious:
https://www.youtube.com/user/destinws2
* Extra Credits various topics (video game design, History, and recently history of Sci-Fi) are great:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz
* Today I Found Out is just on this side of clickbaity, and is this age's "Ripley's Believe It Or Not", but still interesting and more importantly well researched:
https://www.youtube.com/user/TodayIFoundOut
* Crash Course, of course:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6b17PVsYBQ0ip5gyeme-Q
* Gaming Historian, for some insight into the making of systems that formed my (and earlier) childhood:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbvPS_rXp4PC21PG2k1UVg
* Minute Physics, whose latest few videos made Special Relativity understandable to this peon:
https://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics/videos
* Practical Engineering, for some insight into civil engineering topics that we take for granted:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMOqf8ab-42UUQIdVoKwjlQ
* Real Engineering, for insight into various other mechanical engineering topics:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR1IuLEqb6UEA_zQ81kwXfg
* Standup Maths, host Matt Parker was the first to make maths approachable for me again (before 3Blue1Brown took the lead):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSju5G2aFaWMqn-_0YBtq5A
* Steve Mould, who covers various topics both mathematical and physical. You may have seen that gif of him demonstrating the "levitating" siphoning "pearl necklace" (also a friend of Matt Parker, above):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIwxahdLz7bap-VDs9h35A
* The 8-Bit Guy, for some history of early home computer systems:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww
* Numberphile, the second-greatest math channel (after 3Blue1Brown), whose recent video finally made me take the Golden Ratio seriously, rather than an architectural gimmick/conspiracy theory:
https://www.youtube.com/user/numberphile
* Mathologer, another good math channel (but I must sheepishly admit I prefer 3Blue1Brown... sensing a pattern here?):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1_uAIS3r8Vu6JjXWvastJg
* Periodic Videos, for chemistry and physics, often featuring the iconic Dr Martyn Poliakoff:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtESv1e7ntJaLJYKIO1FoYw
* NileRed, for some homegrown chemistry, I particularly appreciate the candor of the approach and results:
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRedNile
Not quite as much "educational", but still very very good:
* Every Frame A Painting, now finished, but a great explanation of what makes good cinematography:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjFqcJQXGZ6T6sxyFB-5i6A
* NoClip, long-form documentaries about the making-of video games. Danny O'Dwyer is a treasure:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0fDG3byEcMtbOqPMymDNbw
Apologies for the link spam, this list turned out longer than I expected as I went down my subscriptions, and I've probably missed a few worthy ones!
Edit the final: I discovered many of these channels through referrals from others I was watching, including from the twitter feeds of the authors. Turns out the educational landscape on YouTube is a well-connected graph!
I mean, complaining about the color realism of a film with gigantic monster dinosaurs (whose coloration we may never know to begin with) seems a bit silly. Movies are not documentaries. I'd buy in a bit more for things like the BBC's 'Planet Earth' needing color realism, but even then it's ok to dramatize things.
Every Frame a Painting goes over Michael Bay's work and includes some color content he uses and WHY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2THVvshvq0Q
Big fan of Every Frame a Painting. Loved the indepth breakdowns the channel did and really affected the may I look as film as a medium. Sad to hear that it winded down.
For others interested in similar channels, here's my list:
NerdWriter: https://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdwriter1
Lessons from the Screenplay: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErSSa3CaP_GJxmFpdjG9Jw
The Film Theorists: https://www.youtube.com/user/FilmTheorists
Beyond The Frame: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ7g7HfH1gWmhgxW47IcW7Q
Wisecrack: https://www.youtube.com/user/thugnotes/videos
Movies I Love (and so can you): https://www.youtube.com/user/MarcusHalberstram88/featured
A lot of good lessons in the script. It may not be apparent, but they sure put a lot of hours into making the videos. I especially like the point of no Googling for research (research offline). Every Frame a Painting feels unique because they don't just try to echo other's opinions.
A huge percentage of the Internet is the same information, repeated over and over again. This is especially apparent on film websites; they call it aggregation but it’s really just a nicer way to say regurgitation.
It's sad that they couldn't turn it as a final video, even using a very different style (breaking from their norm). It feels that a video channel deserves a video closure, not a blog post.
I'm happy that both of them finds happiness in their new jobs and location.
1) I try to donate roughly $1 per hour of content I consume. For example, a podcaster I support creates several different podcast series on different topics; I am interested in two of the series each of which has about four 1-hour episodes per month; so I contribute $8 per month. The $1 figure is pretty arbitrary. A major-cable-network television episode purchased from iTunes/Amazon/Google costs $2-$3, so $1 seems fair for an amateur podcast?
2) The total amount so far has stayed small enough that I haven't needed to set a budget. If I needed to, I might ask myself questions like: whose content would I miss the most if they stopped making it? Which creators do I know to be trying (reasonably plausibly) to make a living from their creations, vs. those doing it as a hobby who would probably continue without Patreon contributions?
3) I have reduced or stopped contributions when I stop enjoying (and therefore stop consuming) a creator's content, or when the amount of enjoyable content they produce goes down. (I know the latter reason for reducing contributions can create a vicious circle, I don't have a good answer for it.) If the person is trying to make a living off their art, and they aren't a megastar, they will never really stop "needing" contributions from some minimal number of fans.
Some creators I support don't easily fit into the above framework. For instance, for Every Frame a Painting I contribute $1 per video. His videos are rare (one every few months), far less than an hour long, make over $7000/video (so I don't feel like my personal contribution is particularly "needed"), and (so far as I can tell) are not a source of income he depends on. But I enjoy them so much that I often find myself watching them repeatedly and find I want to contribute.
I think making the top alphabet section more accessible when scrolled down on the page would be the way to go. Maybe make it fixed at the top (or bottom).
That way after I've checked out the links, voted, etc, I won't have to scroll up to go to another alphabet, and then scroll back down. I'd imagine once you reach letter Z, a new user would find that flow a bit annoying.
Cool website though! I love Every Frame a Painting. That guy has awesome analysis on film!