In this first episode of Why This Shot Works, let's familiarise ourselves with the visual vocabulary of the dolly zoom, go over the gear and technique you need to do it and what filmmaking situations you can use it in.

From Paweł Pawlikowski’s black and white trio of films, to Jonathon Glazer’s The Zone of Interest and Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet, I’ll look at Żal's work through a philosophical lens, as well as break down some of the gear and techniques he uses to practically create each frame.

In this video, we’ll break down three films from Guy Ritchie’s career at three distinctly different budget levels: the low-budget breakout Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the mid-budget follow-up Snatch, and the studio blockbuster Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - to analyze how his visual storytelling techniques evolved alongside his production scale.

This video is based on data I gathered from Indiewire's camera surveys at Sundance, Cannes and the Academy Awards. I've used this to track what I see as some of the recent trends in camera selection by DPs on indie to Hollywood productions.

Shooting handheld is a creative decision which is carefully and deliberately considered, rather than a choice born out of pure practicality. Let’s examine some of the reasons why filmmakers decide to shoot handheld, and some reasons and situations where they may not want to.

Today, we are going to dive deep into how Kodak collaborated with DP Marcell Rév to build this new film stock from scratch, explore its different aesthetic, and break down the technical limitations that come from working with it.

Let's go through a typical grips gear package often selected by DPs for indie as well as industry shoots.

Shot sizes are a shorthand language for filmmakers to communicate how each frame will play out. Today we’ll run through the different terms that you can use and the emotional effect they may have on the audience.

Today we’ll go over camera tests: what they are, why industry productions do them, and how you can use them to find the visual language of your film before the first day of shooting.

In this video, we’ll look at some of the most common approaches by cinematographers to shooting moonlit night exteriors, and one less common but innovative solution used at the highest levels of production.

Here are five reasons why a filmmaker might choose to shoot in black and white.

Let's take a look at the cinematography in Alice Brooks' recent large-scale musicals, including In the Heights, Tick, Tick, Boom and Wicked, to show how they provide a particularly clear window into her recent visual style.

There’s something undeniably cinematic about anamorphic. But, to understand these lenses properly, we need to look beyond the flares and into something more fundamental: field of view and squeeze factor.

Some of the most widely used visual effects work is often completely invisible. Let's look at five cases where digital tools aren’t a compromise, but a more efficient and effective solution than going fully practical.

Today, we’ll look at 5 commonly taught filmmaking 'rules', why they aren’t as absolute as they’re often presented, and when and why it can make sense to break them.

What we call ‘natural light’ is often carefully designed realism that’s been shaped, planned, controlled, removed, or rebuilt to feel believable. In this video, we’re going to break down the myth of natural lighting in movies, by looking at some examples of how filmmakers create this look, and why images that may feel ‘natural’ are actually often carefully constructed.

In this video, we’ll look at how the Safdie Brothers made the lower budget 'Heaven Knows What', the medium budget 'Good Time', and the higher budget 'Uncut Gems' - examining what aspects of their filmmaking changed as the budgets grew, and what remained fundamentally the same.

With the upcoming release of The Odyssey, the relationship between Christopher Nolan and IMAX deepens once again, driven by the arrival of the first newly designed IMAX camera since the late 90s.

When you watch a movie you’re looking through a lens that has a specific viewpoint, a specific way of interpreting depth, scale, and distance. And that viewpoint, expressed as a focal length, affects everything.

Despite its vintage roots, VistaVision has quietly re-entered the modern filmmaking landscape through an influx of new movies shot on this 35mm film format. What is it, why did it disappear, and why is it suddenly popular again?