Three days ago I walked out of The Odyssey, and nobody in my row moved. Credits were rolling, lights came up, and everyone just... sat there processing. Zero phone grabs. Zero “well, anyway.” That’s honestly the biggest flex a movie can pull.

But “greatest movie ever” doesn’t come around because Twitter got emotional for a weekend. If you’re gonna make that claim, the craft has to be absolutely farming.

So instead of arguing about vibes, let’s lock in on what actually matters: the camera, the lighting, the blocking, the production design, and all the nerdy filmmaking stuff that separates “this goes hard” from “yeah, they’re actually cooking.”

The Camera: Every Frame Has a Meaning

This is where the movie starts stat-padding.

Nolan and Hoyte van Hoytema basically forced IMAX to evolve. They used the brand-new IMAX Keighley cameras shooting 15-perf 70mm film, which is basically filmmaking on Hardcore Mode.

Film isn’t infinite. Every magazine only runs for a few minutes before somebody has to reload. Every take costs actual money. Every reset burns literal film stock. You don’t get the luxury of doing twenty-seven takes because someone blinked weird.

That changes everything.

Actors rehearse more. Camera operators have to absolutely lock in. Focus pullers are sweating bullets because missing focus on 70mm isn’t “fix it in post” (special mention to the focus puller who had the whole world watch him miss focus).

You can literally feel that pressure in the performances. Nothing feels like people are waiting for the perfect take because everyone knows there probably isn’t another ten takes coming.

That’s aura.

Blocking: The Camera Was Literally Too Big

Here’s the funniest part.

The IMAX camera housing is so ridiculously massive that in a normal two-shot, actors couldn’t actually see each other’s faces around it.

Like...

The camera was built different.

Instead of compromising the compositions, the crew built a mirror rig that bounced each actor’s eyeline so they could still make eye contact while this absolute refrigerator of a camera sat between them.

That’s the kind of behind-the-scenes engineering nobody notices until you realize how natural every conversation feels.

Good filmmaking is solving problems so well the audience never knows they existed.

This movie is full of that.

Composition: Every Frame Looks Expensive

Some movies have pretty shots.

This movie has shots that make you accidentally stop paying attention to dialogue because you’re busy staring at the composition.

Every frame feels intentional.

Foreground layers.

Massive depth.

Characters getting swallowed by landscapes.

Tiny silhouettes against impossible architecture.

It’s giving “museum painting but someone remembered the camera can move.”

Hoyte is constantly using scale to make Odysseus feel microscopic against the gods, the sea, and the world itself.

The framing keeps reminding you that this isn’t just one guy on vacation.

Bro is getting ratioed by fate.

Lighting: They’re Letting Light Do the Talking

One thing Nolan’s movies almost never do is over-light everything.

Here, they're fully trusting natural light whenever possible.. Torches actually look like torches, sunlight falls off naturally instead of blasting every corner of the frame, and dark scenes are allowed to stay dark instead of turning into that fake blue "Netflix night" look. It makes the whole world feel grounded, like the light belongs to the environment instead of existing just to make the image easier to see.

Because they’re shooting on giant-format film, every little lighting decision suddenly matters way more. Highlights bloom differently. Shadows keep texture. Skin actually feels alive instead of getting flattened by digital sharpening.

It feels tangible.

You can almost tell where every light source is coming from without thinking about it.

That’s good cinematography.

Practical Effects: CGI Could Never

The Cyclops works because Damon isn’t screaming at a tennis ball on a C-stand.

He’s reacting to something with actual size, actual shadows, actual weight.

The practical creature work means the lighting naturally wraps around everything the same way it wraps around the actors.

Nothing feels like it was pasted into the frame six months later, but you don’t consciously notice that.

Your brain just buys it. That’s the whole game.

Camera Movement: Nobody’s Showing Off

One thing I kept noticing is how confident the camera feels. Every movement has a clear purpose. The camera pushes in as the tension builds, stays locked off when the actors are carrying the scene, and opens up when the landscape deserves to fill the frame. There is almost no sense that the filmmakers are trying to show off or draw attention to the cinematography. Ironically, that restraint is what makes the shots so memorable. The camera never feels like it is asking for attention. It earns it.

The Edit: The Only Time I Lowkey Got Knocked Out

This is honestly where the movie fumbles.

Jennifer Lame is one of the best editors working right now, but some scenes feel like they got cut one beat too early.

A character says something huge-

-and before the emotion lands...

…we’re already somewhere else.

It keeps the momentum flying, but sometimes momentum isn’t what a scene needs. Sometimes you just need everyone to sit in the silence for like... one extra second.

Those tiny pauses are where movies become unforgettable.

A few scenes definitely left XP on the table.

Sound: The Mix Is Still Fighting the Movie

Ludwig Göransson’s score is insanely cool conceptually. Instead of defaulting to a giant Hollywood orchestra as he did with Oppenheimer, he leans into textures and percussion that feel older and stranger.

The issue is that those sounds live in almost the exact same frequency range as dialogue. Combine that with Nolan’s habit of making the sound design absolutely nuclear and you get the classic experience:

“What did bro just say?”

The score is incredible. I’d also like to hear the actors.

Both things can be true.

So... Is This the Greatest Film Ever?

That’s still impossible to answer.

But if we’re talking strictly about filmmaking craft?

This thing is absolutely farming.

The camera work is unreal.

The blocking is insanely clever.

The lighting is gorgeous without screaming that it’s gorgeous.

The practical effects make the world feel physical instead of rendered.

Even the technical compromises like working around these gigantic IMAX cameras, committing to film, solving impossible blocking problems. They end up making the movie feel more alive because everyone had to actually earn every frame.

The edit occasionally rushes moments that deserved to breathe.

The sound mix still catches Nolan in 4K.

But everything happening in front of the camera and inside the camera is operating at an absolutely ridiculous level.

Whether it’s the GOAT is still up for debate.

Whether it’s one of the nastiest displays of modern cinematography and large-format filmmaking we’ve seen in years?

Yeah.

That’s not glaze.

That’s just ball.

—

What were your thoughts on Odyssey?

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You’ve got the short film idea. You’ve got a rough budget, maybe a cast, maybe a DP who’s lowkey carrying the whole project. Then a grant application or festival submission hits you with the “director’s statement” or “note of intent” section.

And suddenly you’re staring at a blank page wondering why this feels harder than writing the actual script.

So you do what literally everyone does the first time. Accidentally rewrite your synopsis with extra adjectives: “This deeply personal film explores identity and belonging through a visually striking lens.” Cool. That could be pasted under like 500 different festival submissions. Somewhere on the other side, a grants person who’s been reading these all day is speedrunning applications looking for the one that sounds like an actual human wrote it.

That’s the whole point of a note of intent. Your logline already explains what happens. This is where you explain why you’re obsessed with making it. Why this story? Why are you the person telling it? Why now? And what do you want people sitting in that dark theater to feel when the credits hit?

Because before anyone sees a single frame of your film, this page is your vibe check.

Why this matters even more now

Real talk, a lot of projects today go through committees, executives, test screenings, algorithm discussions, and AI tools that can help with everything from coverage to shot lists. None of that is automatically bad. But it does mean a clear, specific point of view stands out way more than it used to.

If your note of intent sounds like it could’ve been generated by a template, people keep scrolling. If it sounds like someone who genuinely has something to say, people pay attention.

Having a recognizable voice is lowkey becoming a cheat code.

Quick context on why I’m saying all this. I used to work for a grant funding body, so on top of writing applications, I was reading them. Around a hundred a week. After a while, you start spotting the same patterns. You can tell who’s saying something real, who’s relying on buzzwords, and what actually sticks.

The filmmakers I worked with went on to secure over $50,000 in funding from organisations like BFI, BAFTA, DFI, the Red Sea Film Fund, and others. The approach I’m about to walk you through is the same one we kept coming back to because it genuinely worked. I’ve also put together a FREE guide with exercises, real examples, and a full step by step breakdown, which you can grab at the end of this article.

The biggest mistake

The trap is writing something like: “I want to make this film because it’s about grief.”

Okay, sure. That’s true. But it’s also giving absolutely nothing.

The fix is asking yourself one question over and over:

“But why?”

Write your first answer.

Then ask: But why?

Answer that.

Then ask it again.

Keep going until your answers stop sounding like a film studies essay and start sounding slightly too personal.

For example, you might start with: “I want to make this film because it’s about a relationship falling apart under pressure.”

Then ask why that pressure matters. Maybe because success makes people hide parts of themselves. Ask why that matters. Maybe because you’ve spent years feeling like achievement was the only thing that made you worth keeping around.

That last sentence is probably way closer to the real reason than the first one.

And yeah, it’s a little uncomfortable. That’s usually a good sign.

Your first draft will probably be chaotic

Genuinely, don’t expect the first version to be clean. You’re going to connect your short film to capitalism, childhood trauma, social media, burnout, loneliness, and the collapse of modern society all in the same paragraph.

That’s just the lore dump phase.

Leave it alone for a day. Come back. Cut everything that feels like you’re trying to sound profound. Keep the two or three sentences that still hit when you read them back.

Those are usually the sentences that make someone stop scrolling.

The goal

A good note of intent shouldn’t read like a corporate mission statement. It should read like a filmmaker who actually knows why this story won’t leave them alone.

Because the applications that get remembered are usually the ones where you can hear a real person behind the words.

If you’ve got an application due soon, the full guide for FREE linked below goes through the exact process step by step, including a messy first draft, the edited version, and real examples from short films.

[Download the Note of Intent guide →]

[FREE] Full Guide: Note of Intent

4.18MB ∙ PDF file

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A practical, exercise-driven guide to writing a director's note of intent. Clear methodology, strong central device with examples

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And if you try the “but why” exercise on your own film, drop your chain in the comments. I wanna see where it got weird, because that’s usually where the good stuff starts.

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I’m not gonna lie, seeing A24 and Google DeepMind in the same sentence felt kinda surreal.

It’s the type of headline that makes you scroll back up because your brain needs a second to process what it just read. A24 has spent the last decade becoming the studio that every young filmmaker either loves, debates, or has accidentally used as a personality trait at some point.

And honestly, it makes sense.

For a generation that grew up watching Hollywood become more obsessed with franchises, sequels, and safe bets, A24 felt like the company that still let people be weird. They backed films that were too strange for traditional studios, too personal for algorithms, and too risky for executives who only cared about opening weekend numbers.

The A24 logo became its own kind of signal. You saw it before a movie and you already had an idea of what you were getting into. Maybe it would be incredible. Maybe it would make absolutely no sense. Maybe you’d leave the cinema questioning your entire existence. Either way, someone clearly let the filmmaker cook.

So yeah, when Google DeepMind announced its partnership with A24, I think it gave everyone the ick.

Google is reportedly investing around $75 million into A24, marking the first time the tech giant has taken a stake in a movie studio. The partnership is focused on developing new AI filmmaking tools and workflows, with both companies saying they want creators involved in shaping how these technologies are developed.

Obviously, the internet immediately went into chaos mode.

Some people saw it as the future of filmmaking. Others saw it as another sign that the industry is slowly handing over creative control to tech companies.

But the interesting part of this deal is understanding how that changes things for up-and-coming filmmakers.

Usually, filmmakers get handed new technology after the fact. A new camera comes out, a new software gets released, a new platform changes distribution, and everyone has to adapt.

This feels different because A24 is sitting closer to the development process and Google provides for the masses.

DeepMind and A24 say they want to build new workflows with filmmakers involved, instead of creating technology in isolation and expecting artists to just accept it later.

And that’s probably why Google chose A24.

Because it’s the company that appeals to the new masses and is here to stay, unlike the Golden Era giants.

Tech companies are insanely good at building things. They are not always great at understanding culture. A24 spent years building a relationship with an audience that cares deeply about cinema and artistic identity.

That reputation is valuable.

Especially now.

AI companies have been getting cooked by creatives for years now. The concerns become who owns the work being used to train these systems, who actually benefits from them, and whether these tools are here to help filmmakers or slowly replace parts of the process.

That’s why A24 is such an interesting partner for Google. They’re working with a company that has built a whole identity around protecting weird, personal, filmmaker-driven work. For Google, that relationship gives AI something it has been struggling to build on its own: trust.

And that’s where things get a little messy.

Because A24 became famous by feeling like the opposite of the machine. It was the studio that seemed to look at Hollywood’s obsession with franchises and say, “nah, let’s make something actually interesting.” It was the place where filmmakers could take risks without everything being designed by a spreadsheet.

But here’s the thing about success.

Eventually, everyone gets pulled into the system.

A24 isn’t the tiny indie kid hiding in the corner anymore. It’s one of the biggest names in modern cinema. Its films win Oscars, its brand has become instantly recognisable, and now one of the biggest technology companies in the world is trying to build the future of filmmaking with them.

The plot twist is that the outsider eventually becomes part of the industry it was challenging.

And honestly, this happens all the time.

Every generation has that moment where everyone online starts saying cinema is finished. The industry is cooked. It’s over.

Then a few years pass and everyone adapts.

Digital cameras didn’t kill filmmaking. Streaming didn’t kill filmmaking. Every new technology creates panic first, then becomes another part of the toolbox.

The actual conversation is about who owns that toolbox.

Because if the companies building the future of filmmaking are also deciding how those tools work, filmmakers need to have a voice in that process.

That’s basically A24’s position. The studio has said it would rather have creators involved while these technologies are being developed than sit back and complain once everything is already decided.

Fair enough.

Whether that actually protects filmmakers or just helps make AI feel more acceptable is something we won’t know for a while.

But this partnership does reveal something pretty wild about where movies are heading.

The next big decisions about cinema might not only happen in Hollywood offices anymore. Some of them could happen inside companies that were never originally interested in making movies at all.

Which is kind of insane when you think about it.

A24 spent years representing the filmmaker trying to break into the industry.

Now it’s becoming one of the companies helping decide what tools those filmmakers will have access to.

Cinema has always moved with whoever controls the money and the technology.

The question is whether the artists building the future will actually have a say in it.

---

Would you actually use AI tools made with A24 behind them, or does the whole thing already feel kinda cursed?

One last thing.

I’m a London-based cinematographer inspired by art and driven by technology. I’d love to hear your thoughts on my portfolio.

yanischerif.com

If you’re working on something interesting and think we’d be a good fit, I’d love to hear from you!

Feel free to send me a message.

And listen, those are good movies. I’m not here to dunk on The Dark Knight. But when you zoom out and look at the actual pattern across IMDb’s charts and the endless “best of the century” listicles that borrow its DNA, it’s giving... a very specific taste. A very English-language, very American-studio, very “we watched this in a film class in Ohio” taste. And that’s a bias that’s worth unpacking.

The math isn’t mathing

This isn’t just me being dramatic. People have actually crunched the numbers on IMDb’s top-rated lists. One deep dive tracked the site’s Top 250 and found something wild: Bollywood’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, a movie so massive it’s still running in an actual Mumbai theater decades later hit the vote count and rating threshold to qualify for the list back in 2014 and just... never showed up. Multiple Indian blockbusters have done this same thing, appearing briefly in the rankings before mysteriously vanishing, never to return. Nobody’s fully explained why.

Separately, a group ran the ethnic makeup of every cast in IMDb’s Top 250 and found that over 60% of those films fell into the whitest possible category, with only about 10% of the entire list landing in the more diverse tiers combined. While we try to pretend“the algorithm is neutral and this is just what’s good.” That’s a feedback loop where Western, white-led films get more votes because more Western, white audiences are the ones voting, which pushes them up the chart, which gets them more visibility, which gets them more votes. Rinse, repeat, canon formed.

What’s actually getting left off the guest list

So here’s my thing when a “greatest films since 2000” list claims to speak for global cinema but somehow can’t make room for any of these, something’s off:

In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000) — routinely called one of the most beautifully shot films ever made, by actual critics, and still gets treated like a “for the film majors only” pick instead of a top-tier great.

A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011) — one of the tightest, most morally complicated scripts of the decade, won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, still gets skipped.

RRR (S. S. Rajamouli, 2022) — broke containment into Western pop culture through pure meme energy and it still barely registers on these lists as a serious contender.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019), Amores Perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2000), The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, 2016), Burning (Lee Chang-dong, 2018), Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014), I could keep going. If views or box office numbers are out of the question, then what makes the films on these lists better if not their impact on cinema?

Why this actually matters and isn’t just internet discourse

I know “representation in a movie ranking” can sound like a low-stakes thing to be mad about compared to literally anything else going on right now. But hear me out: these lists aren’t just trivia, they’re the front door. They’re what gets recommended to a 16-year-old who just made an account and typed “best movies ever” into a search bar. If that door only opens onto American and British and occasionally Korean-but-only-Parasite cinema, that kid grows up thinking “world cinema” is a side quest instead of the actual main story of film history.

And it’s not like international audiences aren’t watching and rating things. It’s that the infrastructure who’s got internet access to vote, who’s algorithmically weighted, who gets festival buzz that translates to English-language press coverage is stacked. The list is measuring “best according to whoever the system was built to listen to.” Those are not the same thing, and pretending they are is how you end up with a “greatest of all time” list that somehow thinks it’s more important to include a third Batman movie than a single Ousmane Sembène or Wong Kar-wai or Mati Diop film.

So what do we actually do with this

Not saying delete IMDb or start a whole boycott arc. I’m saying: the next time you’re doom-scrolling one of these “essential films of the century” lists, treat it as a starting point. Go actually look up what won the Palme d’Or the years you weren’t paying attention. Look up what’s topping the charts on Letterboxd in countries that aren’t the US or UK. Follow a critic who covers Nollywood or Iranian New Wave or Thai horror instead of just whoever’s recapping the Oscars.

The “greatest films ever” conversation is genuinely bigger, weirder, and better than what one algorithm trained on one dominant audience is going to hand you. Don’t let a ranking convince you that cinema has a hometown!

---

What’s an international film you think deserves a spot on every “greatest of the century” list and never gets one? Drop it in the comments, trying to build a real list here.

One last thing.

I’m a London-based cinematographer inspired by art and driven by technology. I’d love to hear your thoughts on my portfolio.

If you’re working on something interesting and think we’d be a good fit, I’d love to hear from you!

Feel free to send me a message.

Being a filmmaker is one of the most overused terms in the industry. In my experience, people usually fall into one of two categories.

The Pretenders

You’ve probably heard someone confidently say, “I’m a producer,” or “I’m a director of photography.”

Maybe they are.

Maybe what they mean by producing sounds a lot more like iPhone selfies and a couple of reels on Instagram.

The truth is, it’s often impossible to tell until you ask a couple of questions. Seasoned filmmakers can usually figure it out within minutes. Ask how they shot their last project, how they approached lighting, what budget they worked with, or how they solved problems on set. Suddenly the conversation becomes... significantly quieter.

The People Who Know

These are the people who don’t have to convince you they’re professionals.

Their work speaks before they do.

They’re the filmmakers everyone in the industry recognises as professionals. When they speak, you can directly understand how far ahead they might be in their career, no matter the age.

1. Don’t Be a Pretender

Ask yourself honestly:

Do you actually have the experience to take on this project?

Or are you accepting it because your ego thinks saying no is illegal?

It’s much better to admit you’re not ready than to damage both your reputation and someone else’s production. It’s what makes you a better filmmaker.

It can feel difficult admitting you need more experience. Especially when Instagram keeps recommending 20-year-olds who just signed with A24 or directors whose first feature somehow made £200 million.

Comparison is a full-time job these days, and unfortunately it doesn’t pay.

The reality is every filmmaker builds their own path. Your journey is what makes you interesting, not the destination.

(Corny? Maybe. True? Absolutely.)

2. Forget About the Noise

I struggle with this one every single day.

You open Instagram for FIVE MINUTES

Forty-five minutes later you’re staring at UK Film Work wondering whether working sixteen hours for travel expenses and “great exposure” is actually worth it.

(Spoiler: it usually isn’t.)

My advice instead is prioritise genuine connections.

Build relationships with collaborators.

Watch more films.

Study great work.

Most importantly, stop waiting for opportunities to magically appear and start creating your own.

Nobody is going to care about your career as much as you do.

3. Invest in Things That Actually Matter

No, I don’t mean buying the latest camera (the FX4 is coming out btw).

I’m talking about investing in yourself.

The best filmmakers aren’t defined by the tools they own. They’re defined by the experiences they’ve lived.

Experience is what makes great films.

Read. Film books and books completely unrelated to film. Travel. Meet people. Get your heart broken. Fail. Try again. Live enough life that you actually have something worth putting up on the screen.

There’s a reason the average Oscar winner isn’t 19 years old. Great filmmaking comes from lived experience and an understanding of life that some of us can’t have without growing in maturity.

_{Don’t focus on Jackie Cooper…}

4. Have Patience (Unfortunately)

Here’s the uncomfortable truth.

Even if you do everything I’ve mentioned, the industry still isn’t exactly waiting to hand you the keys to the next Bond film. In fact, it probably isn’t ready to let you mop the floors on one.

The film industry is a complicated beast that’s constantly changing. Streaming changed it. Social media changed it. AI is changing it. Nobody has completely figured out where it’s heading. But it will settle eventually.

To my fellow Gen Z filmmakers, we need the two things our generation dislikes the most:

I. Patience.

II. Faith.

But, waiting doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means keeping your head down, refining your craft (see Point 3), making your own work, meeting people, and trusting that consistency compounds.

5. Don’t Lose Hope

You’ll see people leave filmmaking.

Life happens. I’ve had a friend who had to leave his hopes and dreams behind because his dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Unfortunately, he works a job he hates, but at least he’s able to support his family.

And honestly?

That’s completely understandable.

You’ll also see people move into broadcast, news or corporate work. Somewhat close to the medium, but not quite. Again, nothing wrong with that.

The truth about these kind of cushy 9-5 jobs, is that, they are facades for creativity killers. Most people who enter these jobs now have to depend on them, especially when you start to maintain a certain lifestyle.

Five years later you’re colour correcting another internal company training video wondering where your feature film went.

I hear you from a mile away

“how does bro expect us to survive?”

Good question.

Look for short-term, reccuring contracts that you can depend on.

For example, one of my friends spends a few days every few months shooting corporate videos for the same company. That income gives him the freedom to spend the rest of his time developing projects he actually cares about.

Another creates pitch decks for directors.

I personally shoot corporate content for a film institution twice a year.

Those jobs are essential, especially if you don’t come from money.

Just don’t accidentally build a life around it that makes it impossible to leave. If your goal is HETV and film, treat those jobs as fuel that will help you get to that Bond film set.

So Let’s Recap

• Don’t be a pretender.

• Forget about the noise.

• Invest in yourself.

• Have patience and faith. (Easily the hardest one.)

• Don’t lose hope.

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Bonus Advice for My Fellow Gen Z Filmmakers

Apply for everything. It doesn’t matter where you are in your career. Apply anyway.

The worst thing they can say is no, some brilliant programmes include:

• ScreenSkills

• Film London STRIDE

• BFI

• British Society of Cinematographers

Go to the events.

Meet people.

Talk to strangers (the filmmaking kind, not the serial killer kind).

Make the most of every programme you’re lucky enough to get into.

Competition is brutal, but someone gets accepted.

It might as well be you.

Thank you for making it to the end.

I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts on this survival guide. Did I miss anything? I want these posts to become conversations rather than lectures. The more perspectives we share, the easier it becomes for all of us to navigate this industry together.

Leave a comment

One last thing.

I’m a London-based cinematographer inspired by art and driven by technology. I’d love to hear your thoughts on my portfolio.

If you’re working on something interesting and think we’d be a good fit, I’d love to hear from you!

Feel free to send me a message.