Hannibal fan video to the song : 'Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums' by A Perfect Circle
House fan video to the song : 'Breezeblocks' by Alt-J
My first student film- When Barry Martin loses his keys, a time traveler convinces him to save his son and find love.
True Detective Fanvideo- "Fine Again" by Seether
A video essay reviewing the Hobbit Trilogy. For education purposes only.
How can you trust anything is real? A film analysis of Christopher Nolan's 'Memento.'
I'm no longer bitter, but I've wanted to review this movie since it came out. I talk about animation, writing, acting, and editing. Enjoy!
At last, I can ramble endlessly about my first impressions of movies and tv shows!
It's hard to explain why a show is generic or boring, even though everything about it seems good. It helps to compare it to something exceptional.
Production Design is really important, so there are many shots of ceilings in Mr. Robot. This is a sequence from my original video comparing Mr. Robot to Daredevil, covering the similarities and different effects of the shows.
I rewrote this scene, in a day, for free. David Ayer got paid to write and direct a multi-million dollar film. So the next time you see a movie, and you think, this is stupid, this isn’t working, this isn’t funny, or what the hell was that? Trust that feeling, because it can be better.
A look at experimental film making with Harmony Korine. Spoilers, it's a little weird.
After editing for a while, I think music helps me find a natural rhythm. These are the various ways that Darren Aronofsky and Jay Rabinowitz edited the climactic final scene to Clint Mansell's amazing soundtrack.
A look at exposition and chemistry.
A look at why David Fincher is one of the greatest directors, through masculinity and femininity. There are some pretty strong thematic links between Fight Club and Gone Girl, mostly by how men and women are allowed to express themselves and what unhealthy people do with their insecurities.
Loving Vincent is beautiful, and it's hard to say much more than that. Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman have crafted a visual masterpiece by making a fully-painted film, but I think the structure of the film is underrated. In this video essay, I look at the sense of truth in life and art.
"Behold my work, O mighty ones, and despair!" This video essay seeks to determine if it's possible to accidentally create meaning, by examining Zack Snyder's Watchmen. I discovered the movie first (which was really cool at the time) and then read the graphic novel by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins, which had a lot more depth and meaning.
Writer-Director Makoto Shinkai makes beautiful films, obviously. But after watching his body of work, I noticed how his animation serves the theme of waiting or being present. This video essay focuses on his feature films: Your Name, The Garden of Words, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, 5 Centimeters Per Second, and The Place Promised In Our Early Days.
There's a basic language of cinema, and I'm fascinated by the invisible little details of filmmaking. Great filmmakers can follow the rules or break them. This rule is the 180° Rule.
"This is my design." So this is an attempt to explain why I fell out of love with the TV show Hannibal, and why non-fans never committed as devotedly as the die-hard 'fannibals.' I talk about balancing logic and creativity, bad plot threads, nonsensical writing patterns, and indulging fans
Birdman is a film that expresses my most embarrassing insecurities: vanity, jealousy, and creative validation. It's hard to say definitively what the ending means, but I want to look at how the ending relates to our need to be loved.
There's only one Neil Breen. We can learn a lot from independent filmmakers because they show us what we can do without money. So I wanted to study green screens, but not how to make the effect look flawless; instead I'm looking at perspective.
This is my first attempt at a green screen, using Shia Labeouf. It's the full video, and parts of it were used in my Video Essay, 'Neil Breen's Green Screen.'
I see films differently as I grow older, especially ones about love.
I hope I'm not missing the irony of returning to a franchise I've covered before, but I want to look at storytelling problems in the Hobbit that aren't addressed that often.
Maybe the title is an exaggeration, but The Office (UK) is one of the few TV shows that really captures what it's like to work with other people, especially irritating people.
The more I watch The Office, the more I discover a subtle dynamic between the camera and the characters: movement, framing and, of course, looking at the camera. This is just a small fraction of the show's cinematography.
Why does a television show get worse over time? In this video essay, I explore what made The Office so great in previous seasons and what makes it so "mundane" in recent seasons. It's still very good, but not as good as it was. And I think you can apply these points to any sitcom.
Irreversible is an incredible film that I would recommend to no one. It's brutal, painful, and nauseating. But it's worth looking at with honesty.
When a franchise contains the highest grossing film of all time, it's worth exploring how that happened. There's a lot of discourse surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but its success was not accidental. In this video, I look at the rough patches of adapting Marvel comics, and how the MCU got to be so popular.
I'm leaving no (Infinity) Stone unturned. In this video essay, I try to sort through the specifics of four big criticisms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: a reliance on the past, a preoccupation with setups, limitations of the genre, and a big action scene to top everything off.
Cinematic Parallels.
I decided to make Uncut Gems more stressful. I'll review it one day, but not any time soon. I have a video in copyright limbo, and I'm developing a really long video essay, so I'm just killing time for now.
Just joking ;)
Part One: Broken. In this six-part video essay, I'll be looking back on my favorite TV show, House. The ups and downs, the good and the bad, and everything in between.
Part 2: Now What ? I think Broken creates a dividing line in House's quality. But why? Let's find out.
Part 3: You Must Remember This *Paging Dr. Woke to the O.R.*
Part 4: Both Sides Now How do the secondary characters stack up across the series?
Part 5: Love Hurts *Paging Dr. Love to the O.R.*
Part 6: Everybody Dies All things come to an end. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed it.
A little behind-the-scenes look at some invisible effects I made for my House video essays. In context, TV credits are perfectly natural. But video essays are all about presenting information. And when you splice separate clips together, a random person's name can be distracting. Most of the time, I can edit around it, but sometimes I need a specific shot. So I have to get creative. (Please refer to me as the David Fincher of Video Essays. Thanks.)
A brief history of the Dolly Zoom, and how this camera technique can be replicated in animation, specifically in The Lion King.
My original Don Jon video essay and the remastered version cannot escape the copyright bots, and the copyright holder refuses to recognize my work as fair use. Oh, and I got a channel strike. Watch either version on Vimeo.
(Quarantine Vibes.) In this video essay, I discuss how Moon expresses three connected themes: Isolation, Marketing, and Futility.
This is a video essay about Adaptation. Kind of.
Here's to the fools who dream. In this video essay, I share my experiences as a former aspiring actor, and how that's shaped my opinion of La La Land.