Each week, our lighting workshop will be paired with a relevant film. Lubitsch, Ford, Ray, Soderbergh: all the stars are here!

Vancouver folks!

I've been invited back to @viffest.bsky.social to talk about the history of lighting ideology for four weeks this May. Come say hi if you're in town, and help me demonstrate a century of lighting!

viff.org/series/film-...

I love that the two common disagreements w.r.t. this video have been:

"Nobody actually thinks this."
&
"Of course it's true. A 50mm is a 50mm. Try [X permutation of the exact same test that will result in the exact same finding] and you'll see that there is indeed something special about LF!"

Large Formats Aren't Special: The VistaVision Myth YouTube video by Devan Scott

T-Minus 5 minutes on what critics are saying is "the year's hottest video about the intersection of format sizes, camera perspective, and misinformation!"

Preach

Mark yer calendars. Premiere at the link below at 10:00am PDT tomorrow:

Devan’s new vid essay soon! Co-directed & edited by me! Debunks virtually every video essay about the benefits of large formats from the past ~2 years!

Even if you’re from the video game side of my followers, if you enjoy my approach to criticism and analysis I encourage you to give it a look.

New video essay dropping soon 👀

New team photos just dropped (finally!!) with @dagscott.bsky.social

I feel like it hasn't fully sunk in for folks who don't need it day-for-day how bad SSD and HDD storage prices are right now. 1TB SSDs and entry-level 8TB HDDs are both well over $300, and most models are just fully out-of-stock.

There's no shortage of bones one could pick with the push towards generative AI, but the fact that it's making the production and storage of genuine digital art prohibitively expensive is one of the most infuriatingly ironic.

All three of these shots feature depths of field that are readily achievable on super 35mm sensors. That shot from Wicked isn't even that shallow-focus. Neither sensor size not aperture plays a bigger role because they're just two coefficients in a simple math equation.

Here's three shots: 17.5mm (f2.8, M4/3), 23mm (f4, Super-35), and 35mm (f5.6, full-frame 35). Compression doesn't change at all, because field of view remains consistent, and depth of field matches because the increased DOF by dint of focal length changes has been accounted for with aperture.

Lenses don't compress the background (only changing the physical position of the camera can do that) - the thing that changes here is depth-of-field, and that's if you keep the aperture consistent. But this can of course be totally counter-acted by just compensating with the aperture.

I understand if you really want to watch some stuff that I did editing on, but you're also kinda thinking, "Ah shoot, I was actually gonna see if I could find a really good video about how dark movies and TV are these days and why." Fortunately, I have the solution to all your problems right here.

Why Are Movies So Dark? YouTube video by Devan Scott

Now that a certain new TV show has once again stirred up the "why are movies so dark now????" debate, I would once again like to tap the "I made a video essay about this years ago" sign.

Is this a composite focus rack I see in the Moana trailer?

This music video might very well be the new high water mark for uncorrected log. Was this even graded at all?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7ya...

Devan did a great write-up! Go pick up the beans!

My work on the micro-budget feature A SAFE DISTANCE (dir. @doctorgloria.bsky.social ) got written up in @sarahshachat.bsky.social's Indiewire article covering SXSW. I spilled the beans! All of them!

www.indiewire.com/gallery/sxsw...

SCA | Quick News | January 26, 2026 The Brutal Joy in PuSh | TRP plays premieres by Lee, Priest, Underhill, and Pepa | Bajakian on Making Sense of Maqam | Calling for Hypnosis Between Science and Magic | Let the kids get live! | Critica...

Love this small SCA shoutout to alumnus @dagscott.bsky.social for his work on STEVE JOBS MONOGRAPH

I can confirm that the Arrow version of The Good the Bad and the Ugly is significantly superior and will probably remain the definitive version for quite some time.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly | VIFF Centre Watch The Good, the Bad and the Ugly like it's never been seen before. This definitive cut will be paired by an intro and talkback after the screening.

Are you in Vancouver? Do you want to see the best version of THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY available theatrically? Come on down and watch it! (After I talk about it for ~10 minutes.)

From the Jafar Panahi talk at Berlinale.

To the Texans here:

My jaw was on the floor by about the third answer and it was all downhill from there. Stunning stuff.

omg

Oh yes. It's concerning.

Let's just say #general has been active this morning.