The lockdown has given us a lot more free time than usual and therefore this is the ideal time to indulge in something that you absolutely love. If you are a cinephile, then this is a perfect time to watch amazing movies or documentaries and learn from them. There are two ways of watching movies – one where you watch them just for enjoyment and one where you look at them as a study material as well as a source of entertainment. If you are someone who watches movies the second way, then you obviously need more time as such an approach requires multiple viewing.
Therefore, the best thing to do in such cases is to rent a movie from a top digital platform for a few days and watch it multiple times.
One of the best ways to ensure that you learn about film-making by watching movies is to watch content from different genres. The more diverse your content consumption is, the more are the chances of you learning different things. This is where performing arts theatre comes in as it brings you unique movies/documentaries that give you a lot to learn from. Let’s take a look at each of them one by one.
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and “The Band”
One of the best ways to learn about the basic technicalities of filmmaking is by watching a documentary and what better way to do it by watching Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and “The Band”. This documentary takes you through the journey of the popular band’s guitarist. Co-produced by Martin Scorsese, this documentary has been beautifully crafted by using real-life clips of Robbie’s early life, BTS (behind the scenes) shots of the band and much more.
With iconic artists lending their insights in between, there are a lot of interesting stories you get to hear via this documentary about the band. Additionally, as a cinephile, you get to learn a lot of intelligent editing from it. It helps you learn about the proper placing of the clips over the voice of the people speaking.
Fantastic Fungi
Fantastic Fungi is another award-winning documentary that talks about the organism’s influence in shaping the planet the way it is now. Through the merging of incredibly long time-lapse videos, the documentary shows you how something as small as fungi grow to become an important entity in the world. In this documentary, you get an idea about how to capture beautiful time-lapse shots and stitch them together in a seamless manner.
You also get a sense of how to use light in such shots as the natural light falling on the natural greens can act differently over a long time. Again, this is a masterpiece that you should definitely try to watch it over and over to learn the minute details.
The Whistlers
Tight scripting, amazing cinematography, stylish choreography of shots and how to create an intriguing screenplay are just a few of the many things you get to learn from this Romanian crime thriller – The Whistlers. It is one of the most stylishly shot movies in recent times with slick editing and a strong narrative style that keeps the audience invested in the movie throughout.
Since this is the ultimate aim for any film-maker, it is a great movie to watch multiple times and learn to create a movie with a gripping storyline.
You can rent these movies for days, which gives you enough time to re-run them multiple times with your family too. Take a step and make yourself a better student of cinema through these movies during this lockdown phase.
