Director Errol Morris popularized the 'interrotron,' a device that makes audiences feel like documentary subjects are addressing them directly.

Although he began working in television before owning a television set, gaining experience as a producer in the editing room helped Attenborough develop an insight into creating engaging content with less dialogue. Among the technologies pioneered during his career were stabilized cameras for aerial shots, infrared and microphotography, and waterproof electronics for underwater cameras.

The seamless experience of watching a film is the result of countless aesthetic decisions, one of the most important of which is the placement of the camera taking the shot. In this 8-minute video, directors and actors weigh in on the factors that shape the angles of cinematography, using famous scenes to demonstrate their observations. Watch it here.

Early television shows were filmed with a single camera capturing multiple takes from numerous angles, making for an arduous filming process that sucked the energy from comedies filmed in front of live studio audiences. Arnaz proposed a three-camera setup that allowed the show to be filmed like a play, which soon become an industry standard.

Spielberg's career is filled with a consistent technique: zooming in on a significant character's face as they process some essential element of the story. One of the most famous is from "Jaws," when Brody first witnesses the shark.

As more subscribers put Netflix on in the background, the company has encouraged more expositional dialogue in its original scripts. Filmmaker Justine Bateman claims the streamer doesn't "want anything on your show to distract [viewers] from their primary screen."

Traditional techniques for accomplishing this process were slow and labor-intensive, and often required manual frame-by-frame edits, forcing them to be reserved for "hero characters" and close-up shots. Deep learning methods used by Disney and other production companies now provide fully-automatic and production-ready methods to produce such deepfakes for entertainment purposes.

While James Burke was filming the 1978 docuseries "Connections" at the site of a rocket launch, he pulled off a perfectly-timed gesture without use of a green screen. Some say its the greatest live shot ever in TV history.

The artist programmed the camera to capture one image per minute of his daily life. He explained that the project was meant to document his past—in a rather literal way—as it slipped away from him, in a mode that gestured at both surveillance and the radically objective nature of photos. Viewers can expect an immersive installation featuring thousands of mundane images transmitted to a website, challenging traditional photography and exploring the intersection of public and private information.

Robert Redford was drawn to Watergate not by Nixon, but by the partnership of two contrasting journalists—Woodward and Bernstein. In the interview, he explains how he shaped the film's documentary style to spotlight the story rather than the scandal.

Dubbing rose in popularity in the early 20th century because of relatively low literacy rates, which made subtitles impractical. Totalitarian regimes—including Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, and Hitler's Germany—used dubbing to remove or alter unflattering or countercultural dialogue.

In this interview, Hitchcock explains why he doesn't like the term "cutting" because it implies "severing something." Instead, he believes cuts in film allow for a fuller picture and uses the famous shower scene from 1960's "Psycho," which he says uses over 78 different cuts, as an example.

Hitchcock’s importance and influence are exemplified in the specific tropes (such as the MacGuffin and the killing of innocents) and techniques (like the dolly zoom) that the director pioneered and popularized, demonstrating just how far-reaching his influence remains.

Brian De Palma, director of “Carrie,” “Mission: Impossible,” and “Scarface,” discusses the influence of Hitchcock on his career, including how it led him to abandon engineering and pursue a career in filmmaking. He says Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” in particular changed his understanding of “cinematic language.”

The HBO documentary follows the preparation and execution of Abramović’s 2010 MoMA show, taking a deeper look into the emotional experience. Performing was both physically and emotionally taxing for the artist, and visitors were often moved to tears while connecting with her. (This resource contains some artistic nudity.)

When the NFL put out a bid to film the 1962 NFL Championship Game, Ed Sabol promised NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle his higher price tag would be worth it. Sabol’s style of fixed high shots, close-ups of players, and fans in the stands revolutionized how sporting events are filmed, influenced moviemakers like Ron Howard, and gave birth to NFL Films.

Almost a decade before the arrival of "Star Wars," George Lucas directed "THX 1138," a grim science fiction film about a dystopian future in the vein of George Orwell's "1984." This article from the October 1971 issue of American Cinematographer features a young George Lucas, who developed the film from a short he worked on while a student at the University of Southern California just a few years earlier.

Despite their distinct genres, Spielberg films often have much in common with one another. For example, supernatural phenomena, middle-class values, and camera techniques—including long, uninterrupted shots and a dolly-zoom method called the "Spielberg Face.”

Steven Spielberg realized the key to unlocking the terror of the shark in "Jaws" would be by obscuring it, remembering an important lesson from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” Spielberg recalled, “It’s what we don’t see that is truly frightening."

In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock changed moviegoing with "Psycho." At a time when audiences came and went during screenings, he enforced strict start times, banned late arrivals, and kept plot details secret. The result? A $32M hit that helped shape modern theater etiquette.

Long before Tarantino was born, Hitchcock was casting himself in his movies’ bit parts, allowing careful audience members to find the director walking through the fictional world he’d created. The history behind that decision was an accident.

The actor appeared humorless and pouty in the late-night appearance. Host Dave Letterman seemed put off by his guest's behavior, but poked fun at him throughout the interview. Phoenix later returned and revealed he was playing a part in a mockumentary called "I’m Still Here," which satirized celebrity culture.

The inventor was a pioneer in the early film industry and made his own motion pictures. In 1909, he shot a short film featuring Twain at Stormfield, his property in Connecticut. In it, Twain wears his iconic white suit and drinks tea with his daughters.

Journalist Evan Ratliff became the object of his own story: He opted to clone his voice, feed it into an AI chatbot, and have it do the talking. What could seem like a fun experiment ended up revealing just how far the capacity of artificial intelligence can go in imitating our identities. Hear the ins and outs of how Ratliff achieved this in this fun and thought-provoking episode.

Computational scientists were curious: has the intensity of emotional expression in films changed over the decades? Using their sophisticated analytical models, the researchers discovered actors' emotional performance has declined in intensity over time. They believe the close-up shots common in contemporary film-making allows actors to be more subtle in their performance. Check out the main takeaways and charts with this unusual study.

Friedrich produced several works, including "Wanderer," portraying figures with their back to the viewer. The effect—called Rückenfigur, or ”figure from the back”—can create complex emotions of longing, immersion, or awe.

Hitchcock's films rely on seemingly ordinary elements—like birds or hotels—but slowly turn them into menaces, thanks to the director's pioneering camera techniques.

The famous film directors are admirers and collectors of the American painter. Lucas, in particular, relates to Rockwell’s process, which resembles casting for a film. In 2010, the Smithsonian American Art Museum introduced a Rockwell exhibit showcasing works from Lucas’ and Spielberg’s private collections. This video from that exhibit features both directors talking about how and why they became interested in acquiring Rockwell’s work.

Dickens was interested in adapting his work in various forms. With his live readings, he sometimes used a 'magical lantern,' a popular tool that projected moving slides. In addition, some stage plays of Dickens' work that included ghost scenes used the magical lantern to cast apparitions on stage.

On the border between Rwanda and the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, Attenborough used specific vocalizations and behaviors to approach a female gorilla peacefully, only to have two of her children lie down on him. Through a comical exchange, the incident helps show the creatures to be the opposite of the aggressive, violent stereotypes about them.