Sometimes, the fastest way to learn a craft is to try and recreate how the masters do it.
This fantastic two-parter from YouTube filmmaker William H Baker follows as he attempts to recreate a shot from every film nominated for the 2024 Best Picture Oscar.
In Part One, we learn some amazing lessons like:
- Using Adobe’s Generative AI for set extensions when you can’t get snow to recreate Anatomy of a Fall.
- Recreating Past Lives’ subtle lighting.
- Fixing low-quality thermal footage to try to match Zone of Interest’s military-grade cinematography.
- Using a pixel tube and programmable DMX to recreate passing lights when shooting from a static car like in The Holdovers.
- Recreating the iconic shot from Barbie (maximalist set and all).
The sheer amount of time and planning it took to recreate some of these shots is evident, given that the Oscars were in March and the second part came out only just launched last month.
Part two continues with:
- The pains of achieving an underwater shot like in Maestro.
- Using a teenie-tiny bit of fire and a smoke machine to fake the Killers of the Flowers Moon burning field shot.
- How Petzval lenses giver Poor Things that incredible warped bokeh look.
- Recreating the high key lighting from American Fiction.
- Compositing Oppenheimer’s atomic bomb effects in miniature.
A key thing I appreicate from this series is William is not afraid to show the mistakes and missteps, like not testing the smoke machine beforehand (we’ve all been there assuming new equipment should be working straight away).
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but this video series goes beyond mere copying to help you extract valuable lessons and insights you can apply to your own work.