Films Every Visual Effects Artist Should Watch: "Baraka"

This is the first of a series of articles, titled "Films Every Visual Effects Artist Should Watch."

I have written many times about the need for visual effects artists to watch movies, particularly non-visual effects films. For those of us working in the realm of photorealistic visual effects, that is, visual effects whose goal is to blend into the world of the live-action film, it is essential for us to keep our eyes on the target of our efforts. Our target is photorealism - scenarios and characters that, ostensibly, have been photographed right alongside our actors on soundstages and on location, that help tell the filmmakers' stories. In this respect, I encourage young visual effects artists and seasoned artists alike to watch, break down and analyze non-visual effects films. Understanding what is photorealistic will help artists create photorealistic images. This ability is especially important for those in the disciplines of, but not limited to, model making (both CG and practical), texture painters, lighters, and compositors.

Watching and analyzing non-visual effects films will give artists the visual vocabulary of photorealism, and gives the artist the ability to answer questions like, "What makes this look real? What are the visual cues that force the audience to believe that character is standing there? What are the shadows doing in this shot?" One does not need to ask "Why" questions, as in "Why is that portion of the frame overexposed?" One needs to be more concerned with "What" questions.

A mastery of the visual cues that trigger our impulse to "believe in" an image is the single strongest tool in a visual effects artists' toolbox. And this is why every visual effects artist should watch Ron Fricke's "Baraka."

Created in 1992, "Baraka" contains moments of spectacular beauty and intimate humanity, both on an epic scale and in miniature proportions. And there are no visual effects in the film, which makes it a terrific candidate for visual analysis.

It's not a travelogue, nor a vanilla, large-format nature documentary. The film is an exploration of what it means to be a human being on this planet. Or not. One of the beautiful aspects of this dialogue-free film is its seemingly limitless expanse of interpretation. Ten people could watch this film and emerge with ten completely distinguishable interpretations of its meaning, or its central theme.

One thing is certain: the photography in "Baraka" is breathtaking. Photographed by Fricke in a 65mm film format, largely with available light with relatively fast setups in difficult locations with a tiny crew (usually three people, including Fricke), the shots in "Baraka" are stunning. The camera is largely sedentary (with long, lingering lockoffs, peppered with deliberate dolly moves), which allows the imagery to speak for itself. Fricke is an extraordinary cinematographer, and "Baraka" is his crowning achievement as a cameraman. (As an aside, I had the unique privledge of compositing some of Fricke's photography; for "Star Wars: Episode III," it was Fricke and his team who photographed the real lava blasts on Mt. Aetna in Italy, which we ultimately used as elements in the Mustafar sequences for the film.)

Much has been written about "Baraka," so I will excerpt from a far-superior writer to get his take on the film. From Roger Ebert, who recently revisited "Baraka," crowning it one of his "Great Movies":

The film consists of awesome sights, joyful, sad, always in their own way beautiful. By that I do not mean picturesque. A friend came into the room while I was watching the film, saw a closeup of the head of a Gila monster and said, "That's beautiful." I asked if she liked lizards. "I hate lizards," she said, shuddering. She wasn't thinking about lizards. She was observing the iridescent scales of the creature's head... Tiny bright plumes in a desert are revealed as the burning oil fields of Kuwait. Mothballed B-52 bombers reach to the horizon. Manhattan. Corpses are burned on the banks of the Ganges. Will they know the donkeys are pulling a cart much too heavy for them? They will probably understand mountains, waterfalls, volcanoes. Do we? "Baraka" is paced so we can contemplate the places we will never go, the places we are destroying, the places where we might find renewal. It is like a prayer.

Like Ebert writes, the deliberate pace of the film allows the viewer to not only absorb the images, but to contemplate their meaning. And this deliberate pace gives us an opportunity to study the imagery in unique ways.

Specifically, there are several things effects artists can take away from the film. For one, "Baraka" allows effects artists to see how scale is represented, both large and small. Notice the visual cues that the shots of Ayers Rock in Australia are giving the audience. How does this look different than, say, a one-foot dirt pile in the road?

The slow moving dolly shots allow artists to analyze the effects of parallax. When working within a 3D system, most of these technical decisions are made for you automatically. However, if you're designing a world, and are trying to convey a feeling of vastness, how you build the scale of your scene will dramatically affect the way it is interpreted by the audience if you are unaware of the power of parallax. (A lack of understanding can sometimes lead to visual effects shots where elements are placed in space in such a way that, when the camera moves, the audience feels like they're viewing billboards on cards of varying scale, rather than real-life objects placed realistically within a world.)

One of the many deliberate, slow dolly shots in "Baraka," featuring skulls from one of the killing fields in Cambodia.

There are several shots in the film that feature group behavior, which is perfect for analysis for anyone who is tasked with creating synthetic crowd shots, either human or animal. Watch the poetic precision of Amazonian men dancing crosslegged, or the swirl of men walking around the Kaaba cube in Mecca, or the seated factory workers creating cigarettes in rows as far as the eye can see. For anyone who has to create crowd behavior, there is much to examine here.

And for those who create synthetic environments, there is plenty to examine. Modern cityscapes, both crisp and new, and dilapidated and pathetic. Ancient ruins, religious temples, places of intense historical horror, and locales of deep spiritual significance. Also represented are elements of the earth; water, wind, sky and stars.


Although there are no optical tricks used in "Baraka" to enhance the film, one technological technique used to create certain shots involves a giant step in the evolution of time lapse photography. Several shots in the film feature extreme speed changes, both slow motion (running the film camera at a higher frame rate), and fast motion (running the film at a slower frame rate). Traditionally, these shots are from a locked off camera with a single exposure, which freezes the point of view. It's the time-lapse with which our eyes are quite familiar. The filmmakers behind "Baraka" added an additional element to their time lapse (fast motion) shots: a moving camera.

Using motion control dolly systems, the cinematographer was able to program a dolly/pan/tilt move on their time-lapse shots, which creates a unique viewing experience. The process is very much the inverse of so-called 'Bullet Time,' which features elaborate camera moves on slow motion shots. The "Baraka" team also had the capability to program exposure changes into their timelapse shots, which means they could photograph a single take that occurs over several hours and compensate for massive changes in light. This is especially important for the day-to-night time-lapse shots, such as the big city dolly into traffic, or the film's climax which features several moving camera time-lapse shots of canyons at night with starfields and clouds zipping past mountains.

In this amazing time-lapse shot, the camera slowly dollys forward through an open window to reveal the living, breathing city, just as the sun sets. The rhythmic pulsing of the synchronized street lights, along with the subtle soundtrack, imparts an ironic sense of organic life amidst a sea of concrete and steel. This motion control time-lapse shot is one of the most memorable scenes in the film.

"Baraka" also has fun with its editing style, frequently cross cutting between two very disparate scenarios, allowing the viewer to interpret its significance. In one of the showcase montages of the film, Fricke cross cuts between baby chicks placed on conveyor belts in preparation for their lives as egg hens, and various time-lapse shots of commuters around the world. This narration-less juxtaposition of images allows the viewer to interpret a message (if one exists), rather than having it spelled out by the artist.

Consistently, the photography of "Baraka" is honest and true. It provides a gold mine of inspiration for modern visual effects artists whose job it is to create honest and true images, both in the grand scheme and in specific terms.

Even though "Baraka" is a small, special-interest film that is over 15 years old, its following is strong. 70mm prints of the film show up at 70mm film festivals in big cities all the time. (Take a peek at this schedule from in70mm.com, which shows upcoming 70mm screenings from all around the world, and notice all of the "Baraka" listings.) I've personally seen it projected in 70mm in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. And the DVD of the film looks pretty darn good, as well. But for those of you with Blu-ray players, you're in for a special treat.

Recently, the film was painstakingly restored for future generations, creating a stunning new video transfer which is now available on Blu-ray. Ebert wrote, "The restored 2008 Blu-ray is the finest video disc I have ever viewed or ever imagined. It was made from the Todd-AO print, which was digitally restored to a perfection arguably superior to the original film... 'Baraka' by itself is sufficient reason to acquire a Blu-ray player."

The Digital Bits wrote: "Quite simply, Baraka is the best looking live action Blu-ray release I have EVER seen. It's truly an extraordinary viewing experience... astonishing. [The] Blu-ray release of 'Baraka' is a landmark achievement for the format."


Over the years, I have been hesitant to toss a DVD of "Baraka" in front of someone who had never seen the film before, thinking that I would be giving them an abstract approximation of the film by showing them a crippled, low-resolution version of the film. And although the DVD is worth viewing, it cannot remotely get close to the experience of viewing this beautiful film in 70mm on a huge screen. In fact, I considered embedding video clips into this article, but ultimately decided against it for this same reason. However, with the superlatives being thrown around concerning the quality of the Blu-ray release, I can confidently recommend a home video option for viewing this exceptional film.

These last three shots, scenes from the Ganges river in India, are ripe for visual analysis. In the middle image of the harbor, for example, notice how the atmosphere builds up over the depth of the shot, how the foreground boats have a richness of contrast, while the background boats and buildings appear contaminated with atmosphere. The lens is not particularly wide, but the sense of depth is palpable. The lower image, of bodies being cremated at the river's edge, is richly composed. We have areas of direct sunlight and shadow, various levels of smoke and fire, atmosphere that is patchy yet discernable, and people moving in and out of all of these elements. Visual effects artists are frequently tasked with creating these scenarios completely from scratch. If one analyzes rich, deep, authentic real-life shots like these, one will have a stronger toolset of techniques to help create realistic, plausible effects scenes.

The "Star Trek" Trailer

In case you haven't heard, the new "Star Trek" trailer has been released. To see it in full HD glory, take a peek at "Star Trek" at apple.com. "Star Trek," directed by J.J. Abrams, will be in theaters in May, 2009.

And here are some completely random frames from the trailer, as chosen by the Randomizer 2000(tm) software, featuring ArbitraryBoost 2.0.

Visual Effects Camera Work: "A Fish Called Wanda" and "Mission: Impossible III"

You will undoubtedly hear this bit of advice repeatedly on this blog: the single best education for visual effects artists involves watching non-visual effects films and dissecting and analyzing the creative and technical choices made to achieve believable shots. In this article, I'll concentrate on organic, realistic camera work in live-action films and how photoreal visual effects artists can learn from cinematographers how to compose actors within the frame, and make their camera work feel natural and true to the style of the rest of the film. I'll also show you an example of my work from "Mission: Impossible III," and how I analyzed the film's camerawork to make my effects shot fit into the rest of the film.

One of the basic tenets of photographic camera work involves the framing of actors with appropriate headroom. Traditional Hollywood movies have used the rule of thirds to help guide cameramen into shooting pleasant compositions. Framing an actor's eyes to fit onto a line that is 1/3 of the way from the top edge of the frame is sure-fire way of achieving a 'proper' composition. Using this technique, the actors fill the frame in a pleasing manner with proper headroom; the audience can clearly read the actor's face. Generally speaking, this type of framing of actors' is the standard for Hollywood films. Unless a filmmaker has a stylistic reason for framing his actor differently (to give the shot a different, off-balance emotional feel), you will see this type of framing as the standard.

A shot from "Romancing the Stone" (1984), directed by Robert Zemeckis.

The same shot, with an upper-third overlay. Notice how Michael Douglas' eyes perfectly line up with the upper third of the frame.

Better yet, this kind of framing consistency means that when one shot cuts with another, the audience doesn't need to frantically scan the frame to lock their eyes on what is important: the actor's eyes. Actors' eyes are consistently featured at the upper third of the frame, which leaves the audience only to scan the frame horizontally from shot to shot. It's a subtle way to help guide an audience member through a sequence. Remember, in most cases, traditional Hollywood narrative films need to keep the techniques subordinate to the story. The editing, sound effects, cinematography and set design all need to service the story and characters, rather than call attention to themselves.

Another shot from "Romancing the Stone."

The same shot with an upper-third overlay.

This lesson is extremely valuable to anyone who creates visual effects or animated shots from scratch. Without any live-action footage to use as a basis, it is up to the artist to frame the shot properly. In these cases, it is important for visual effects artists to mimic their live-action counterparts and understand this basic convention of cinematography.

Let's watch this scene from "A Fish Called Wanda," directed by Charles Crichton. Watch how effortlessly we cut from angle to angle in this brilliant sequence, completely devoid of dialogue.

fish from Todd Vaziri Vimeo on Vimeo.

Watch it again, this time with the sound down (as to not distract you from analyzing the visuals), and pay close attention to the compositions, particularly on Michael Palin's close ups. Notice how the camera operator consistently frames its subjects in a pleasing manner, consistently striving for pleasing compositions, not only for actors but props and set pieces (like a gun, a pulley, ropes, and a giant block of concrete).

Notice how the cameraman is constantly reframing his tilt angle to give Palin a pleasant composition within the frame. These shots were photographed with a human being behind the camera, with separate pan and tilt wheels being cranked to frame the shot properly. This lends the shot an organic, hand-created quality, something that is frequently missing from visual effects shots that are 100% synthetic.

Raymond Stella, camera operator, sets up a shot for "Back To The Future Part II." Notice the pan wheel (on the left of the mount) and the tilt wheel (at the rear of the mount).

Why is there sometimes a discrepancy between the feel of real camera moves and synthetic moves? Why do purely synthetic visual effects shots sometimes stand out from ordinary non-effects shots? There are two primary reasons: purely synthetic camera compositions are not framed properly, and the camera's pan/tilt movement is frequently robotic.

As we just discussed, professional cinematographers have the tenets of composition in their DNA; on the other hand, very few digital artists have a photographic background, so it is important for these artists to have a solid foundation of knowledge when it comes to these concepts. Proper framing of subject is something any digital artist can learn.

A more difficult and subtle technique to learn, however, is the skill of adding the organic pan and tilt adjustments to a shot. Rather than pan and tilt wheels being 'performed' in real time on a set, synthetic camera moves are programmed using motion curves on a computer. By default, these curves are exquisitely perfect with either linear perfection, or computer-created acceleration and deceleration slopes. And, if the artist doesn't go in and 'mess up' those curves, they will end up creating a camera move that is sterile and robotic.

Antiseptic, inorganic camera moves are not deal-breakers, but they subconsciously take the viewer out of the experience. A visual effects shot with crystal-clean camera movement, within the context of non-effects shots, is disruptive to the viewing experience. An audience becomes conditioned to the natural, organic nature of a film's camera movement, which makes the visual effects shot stick out, even if that visual effects shot looks completely photoreal and convincing. This is one of those situations in visual effects that, when noticed, causes audiences to say, "That shot feels fake. I don't know why it looks fake, but there's definitely something fake about it."

How can shots with robotic camera moves slip through the cracks? How can visual effects supervisors allow this kind of camera animation get through to the big screen, given all of the hard work and constant reviewing that the shot gets during production? The answer is simple - the vast majority of the time, a visual effects shot, while in production, is viewed hundreds of times on a loop, without any context. The shot just plays over and over at an artist's desk, in dailies and in client reviews. Yes, the shot is cut into a sequence (both on the effects house's side, and on the client's side), but the vast majority of the time, the shot is being analyzed and critiqued in a vacuum. And in a vacuum, the camera move might look just fine. In fact, having an overly-smooth camera move in an effects might actually increase the chances of a shot getting approved. Subconsciously, the artists want their work to be seen, and seen clearly (not only for reasons of vanity, but also from a story point of view), and keeping the camera moves uncomplicated certainly helps the readability of the shot. Adding organic tweaks and twitches to the camera move may be correct and more realistic in context, but it may actually decrease the readability of the shot. Personally, my artistic sensibility is to err on the side of naturalism over readability. Our job as visual effects artists is to make shots that feel as spontaneous and organic as possible, as if the action is truly happening right in front of our eyes; creating organic camera moves is part of that process.

Here's another section of the "Wanda" scene, played back in slow motion with an upper-third horizontal line overlay, so we can better analyze the camera movement.


Notice how the operator is striving to hit the proper eyeline framing. Look at all of the micro movements in the tilt that occur throughout the shot. The operator knows the key marks that Palin will hit, but he doesn't necessarily know precisely when he'll hit those marks. The result is the kind of organic, humanistic camera movement that subtly reminds you that this is a movie made by human beings. These are the kinds of cues that are important to add to synthetic camera moves.

Depending on the shot, the camera operator might miss a moment entirely. Watch this clip from the "Wanda" sequence to see what happens when the operator is a bit behind the action.


For a moment, Palin's eyes are completely off screen. Watching this shot on a loop, one might be surprised that a shot like this would actually make it into the movie. In fact, this is one of those "I would never be able to get away with that kind of move in visual effects" moments. No visual effects supervisor or director would approve an effects shot with that kind of camera move in their shot-- they would complain that the move is far too wild, and we lose focus on what's important: Palin's horrified reaction to what he has just done. However, within the context of the rest of the scene, we 'get it,' and Palin's eyes briefly leaving frame just adds to the emotional shock and absurd comedy of the scene.

Of course, every cinematographer and camera operator has a different style. One cannot study the camera style of a single film and expect to understand the vocabulary of camera movements. "A Fish Called Wanda" was classically shot; in creating this character-driven comedy, the filmmakers made a conscious decision to allow the actors to move within the frame, shoot relatively static, and not call attention to the filmmaking process by keeping the camera moves unobtrusive. On the other hand, a modern action film like "Mission: Impossible III" contains a visual style quite different.

Director J.J. Abrams and cinematographer Dan Mindel created a film whose camera movement was essentially a character in the film. Rather than allowing the camerawork to be invisible and unobtrusive, the camerawork in "MI3" does some heavy lifting; the frenetic nature of the camera style adds to the chaos and unpredictability of the action sequences. Rather than letting the actors work within a static frame, the camera takes us along for the ride and interacts with the characters and the action. When Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is running down the Chesapeake Bay bridge, the camera is running right along with him, trying to keep up, mirroring the emotions of the characters. This style is sometimes called cinema verite, or documentary-style filmmaking, where the camera is an active participant in the action, rather than objectively and coldly recording the choreography.

I was sequence supervisor of the visual effects for the bridge attack sequence for "MI3" at Industrial Light & Magic. To ensure that our visual effects shots fit seamlessly into the rest of the film, we had to pay close attention to the style of camerawork created by Mindel and camera operator Colin Anderson. Here is a portion of the bridge attack sequence, which is entirely comprised of first unit camera work. (Although there are a few ILM shots in this clip, we didn't alter the camerawork in any way.)

Notice the style of camera movement in the clip, contrasted with the "Wanda" clip. The "MI3" camera is constantly pulsing and breathing, mimicking Hunt's point of view. It's a moment of chaos, and the characters are trying to react to this chaos, and so is the camera. In this clip, the camera is constantly searching, readjusting, sometimes losing 'proper' framing. There are a couple of micro-crash zooms in the clip, as well, which is something one would typically see in a documentary. This is exactly the sequence I studied to help create the camera move for one of our big effects shots of the sequence-- a shot that I composited, and that would require a synthetic camera move.

The final two shots of the above clip were very important to me, since they had a very similar tone and feel to my shot, with similar action and camera choreography. The style in which Mindel and Anderson photographed those two shots would be my inspiration for the camera move for "be064," the production code for the shot of Hunt getting blown forward by the shockwave of the truck explosion behind him.

Because of the staggering complexity of the stuntwork, special effects, and ultimately the visual effects work, the base background plates were photographed as smoothly as possible, rather than 'performed' as the rest of the movie was photographed. Visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett needed to make sure that we captured pristine photography of the elaborate stunt that the actor, himself, would be performing, along with the amazing practical special effects explosion.

Here are the base photographic plates for the shot, as featured in the "MI3" 2-disc DVD special edition:

view on Vimeo
Because the focus of this article is visual effects camera work, I will not be able to dive into the massive complexities of this particular shot. Hopefully, I'll be able to talk about the specific challenges of this effects shot in a future article.

As you can plainly see, the base photographic plates for be064 were shot without panning or tilting, slightly wider than necessary, and captured with two cameras with spherical lenses (I would later merge these plates into one large, wide anamorphic plate). I also built my composite with this smooth camera move, without any frenetic camera moves. Once my smooth pre-composite was in good shape, I would add the camera moves in the 2D composite.

Abrams had some very specific camera direction for key moments in the shot. At the head of the shot, he wanted to be tight on Hunt (similar to the framing of the second to last shot of the first "MI3" clip.) Then, just before the missile hits the truck, he wanted a crash zoom out, to reveal a wider view of the action. Then, after the explosion occurs, he wanted the 'operator' to pan/tilt and zoom into the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that whizzes right over Hunt's head. After the flyby, Abrams wanted me to bring the camera back to our hero, still reeling from the shock of the explosion.

Needless to say, that's a lot of choreography for a pretty short shot. To add to the complexity, I would need to add an explosive camera shake to the shot (in reaction to the massive explosion behind Hunt).

Here is the shot as it appeared in the film:

watch on Vimeo

Here were my specific ideas for the camera moves for the shot:

• I was simulating the look of a handheld camera operator sitting atop a dolly, which gives us the smooth movement backwards with all of the energy of handheld.
• Because of the handheld nature of the shot, I made sure to maintain generally 'proper' framing, but also keep it active and chaotic, and allow Hunt's head to break frame from time to time.
• At the head of the shot, when we're still zoomed in tight on Hunt, I made sure to make the camera bobble realistically amplified, which is what you would see in a real-life camera shake with a long lens. Because the field of view is so tiny, even small camera bumps are seen as giant waves of movement. Of course, after the crash zoom out, I made sure to diminish the intensity of the camera bumps.
• On the crash zoom out, I made sure that the zoom and the pan/tilt readjustments that I would make post-zoom were not simultaneous. In real life, the operator zooms out, and then needs to make a split-second decision on framing. It's subtle, but it's there.


• On the explosive camera shake, I had to juggle two challenges which were at odds with one another. I had to make sure that the camera shake did not distort the image to a degree that we would somehow miss the important point of the shot - that the actor is doing his own stunt. This was a very important emotional beat to the shot; I didn't want the audience to think that I was tricking them, or hiding something with an over-the-top camera shake (which audiences, sadly, see all the time). I also had to make sure that the shake was appropriate for a giant explosion that was strong enough to blow an actor off of his feet, smashing into a parked car with such velocity that it shatters its rear window. If anything, I erred on the side of preserving the readability of the shot. Besides, all of the other effects I added (the dust shockwave, manually animating the briefcase across the ground, etc.) helped sell the intensity of the explosion.
• After Hunt hits the car, I wanted to tilt down with his body to achieve a better composition, but notice how I am just a bit late on the tilt. Keeping the tilt just a beat late gives the shot a bit of authenticity, as if the cameraman was operating the camera live, and didn't know exactly where his body would be at any particular time.

• On the UAV flyby, I tried to mimic a camera operator who could see the UAV out of the corner of his eye, and just barely was able to frame for the fast moving jet. And, if you look carefully, we never really get a good composition of the UAV at all, which was fine with us, since the UAV's flyby was an accent to the shot, not the main driving force of the shot.
• Finally, on the pan/tilt back to Hunt and the burning truck, I wanted to impart the energy of a camera operator who carefully rests the camera on his original framing, doing a bit of work to get the proper framing.

Ultimately, the biggest challenge for me was animating a camera shake for the explosion that was big enough to logically fit with the action (a human being blown off his feet), and yet not obscure the action and the big selling point of the shot, which is that Tom Cruise performed his own stunt. Abrams wanted the audience to truly feel what Agent Hunt was going through, to see the anguish on his face, and see what happens to his body after this amazing event.

Integral to this whole process was creating an organic, naturalistic camera move that complemented the rest of the film, and helped sell the spontaneity and reality of the situation.

Stephen Colbert + Star Wars + Star Trek = Funny

From September 16, 2008, "The Colbert Report." For the extremely impatient, skip to 2:10 for the threat from nerds.

When I Was on Extra! Extra!

Here's a clip that ran on the entertainment show "Extra" back in 2005, in the days leading up to the release of "Star Wars: Episode III."


Did you miss me? Did you blink? Like these things usually go, the reporter from "Extra" and I talked for well over an hour, and really got into the nitty gritty of that particular shot... and it was all boiled down to two lines. At least they got to show my breakdown of the shot, which featured some sweet footage of actual lava blasts from Mt. Aetna in Sicily, photographed in HD by Ron Fricke (director of "Baraka") in late 2004. I placed most of the elements in 3D space in After Effects, but rendered out those passes and comped the shot in our in-house compositing tool, CompTime.

The entire Mustafar sequence was a real joy to help create - we had an amazing team comprised of visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett, compositing supervisor Pat Tubach, and comp sequence supervisor Mike Conte, all of whom were extremely generous.

Out of the Fog

Just who are these people?

As you may have guessed from the relatively scant number of posts on FXRant over the past few months, I've been knee-deep in work. After seven hard months, I've finally completed a huge project for which I'm extremely proud. Unfortunately, we all have to wait eight long months to talk about it.

The good news is that I'm taking some time off before starting a new project, and in the meantime I'll be prepping some really cool articles to publish. So sit tight-- good stuff is coming soon. I received a lot of great, positive feedback from the "Dark Knight"/"Shining" articles, so look forward to more articles in that vein. We'll hand out some more Camera Shake Citations, and induct shots into the Depth Of Field Hall Of Shame (an upcoming feature), talk about how Movie Marketing is Hard, and much more.

And on a completely unrelated topic, here are two interesting articles about J.J. Abrams' upcoming film, "Star Trek," coming to theaters in May 2009.

"Star Trek:" New Movie, New Vision
Director J.J. Abrams has set a course to make the Enterprise cool again; here's the inside scoop on his surprising, idealistic odyssey, which may end up with Kirk and Co. driving next summer's box office juggernaut

Entertainment Weekly's "Star Trek" Photo Gallery