DECEMBER 2024 DROPS RECAP
A MILESTONE YEAR!
Happy Holidays, ShotDeck community!
2024 was a special year for ShotDeck. This year, we added over 500,000 new screenshots to our library, taking us past the milestone of 1.5 million fully-searchable cinematic images, all at your fingertips in the world’s largest creative visual encyclopedia. And those half a million screencaps didn’t just come from films and television series. In 2024, we added commercials for the first time, as well as loads more music videos, giving you exciting new ways to get inspired for your next project.
In 2024, we also launched the ShotDeck app on iOS, giving you the power to search for images and add shots to your decks while you’re on the go. Whether you’re looking for a quick reference to make a lighting change on set, or just need to remember the title of that music video with that one shot you loved, the ShotDeck app has got you covered. Check it out today!
And reminder that you can now access ShotDeck via Canva! Our official integration gives you access to the entire ShotDeck library directly within Canva’s interface. You can also directly access any decks you’ve built in ShotDeck in Canva.
Thank you for joining us on this ride. It’s been a special 12 months, and we’re excited for even bigger and better things ahead. Sign up today for a FREE 2-week trial to ShotDeck, giving you full access to the world’s largest library of cinematic reference images. Below is an overview of the 60,000 new shots we added this December.
2024 SUMMER AND FALL FILMS
In December, we added thousands of screenshots from some of 2024’s top summer and fall films to our library. You can now add images to your decks from titles like Alien Romulus, Deadpool & Wolverine, The Piano Lesson, Emilia Pérez, Kinds of Kindness, Maria, Trap, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Inside Out 2, The Front Room and more!
ÉRIC ROHMER
This month, we released hundreds of shots from eight classic entries in the filmography of Éric Rohmer. A giant of the French New Wave, Rohmer’s movies are best characterized by their patient character studies and beautifully vivid renderings of the seasonal landscapes in which their stories take place. Rohmer has been cited as a major inspiration for filmmakers like Richard Linklater, Joanna Hogg, and Hong Sang-soo, and the films in his “Six Moral Tales” series remain some of the most groundbreaking and daring ever made.
Rohmer was also a founding critic and editor-in-chief of Cahiers du cinéma, the oldest French film publication still in circulation, and arguably the most influential film magazine in the world today. Cahiers du cinéma was a radical publication when it started out, ridiculing the tastes of older generations, embracing mainstream Hollywood filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks, and introducing the concept of a director as an individual creator of a film – the birth of what is today called auteur theory. Rohmer and his colleagues, such as Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette, not only changed the way audiences thought about cinema, they changed movies themselves, eventually leaving criticism to become some of the core filmmakers of the French New Wave.
You can check out our December Éric Rohmer curation here, from early masterpieces like La Collectionneuse and My Night at Maud’s, to more contemporary gems such as A Tale of Summer and A Tale of Autumn.
GEORGES MÉLIÈS
To celebrate the holiday season, we curated twelve titles from the original magician of cinema, Georges Méliès. A pioneer of the fantasy and science fiction genres, Méliès directed over 500 films over the course of his career, ranging in length from as short as 1 minute to as long as over 40 minutes. A magician and painter before turning to film, Méliès brought his previous skillsets to his craft, making films that became known for their pioneering techniques and magical qualities.
Among others, Méliès is known as one of the founders of FX techniques such as substitution splices (where an object appears or disappears on screen by maintaining the same framing and mise-en-scène), multiple exposures (where multiple images are combined into a single frame by exposing film to light multiple times), time-lapse photography (where a series of images of a subject are filmed at regular intervals over time, then played back quickly to create the illusion of time passing more rapidly), dissolves, and hand-painted color.
Our selection, which adds to the classic A Trip to the Moon, includes epic biographical drama Joan of Arc, magical short The Diabolic Tenant, sci-fi satire The Impossible Voyage and horror short The Pillar of Fire. Check out those and the rest of our Méliès curation today!
DEEPER DIVE
Jump back in! This month, we returned to 40 popular titles and gave them a glow-up, adding over 18,500 new shots to our library. Check out new screengrabs from contemporary action movies like Mission: Impossible and Looper, European classics like Rififi and Diabolique, Baz Luhrman entries Strictly Ballroom and The Great Gatsby and cult classics such as Face / Off and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
RIPLEY
Steven Zaillian’s adaptation of the 1959 Patricia Highsmith novel brings a new spin to the classic neo-noir story of a down-on-his luck conman (Andrew Scott) who is hired to travel to Italy to urge a wealthy man’s vagabond son to return home – until the job turns into the first step in a life of deceit, fraud and murder.
Also starring Dakota Johnson and Johnny Flynn, RIPLEY was nominated for 14 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning for Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie (Robert Elswitt), Outstanding Sound Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special, Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Single Episode and Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie (Zaillian).
And if you enjoyed the show, check out some other adaptations of the Ripley series, such as Purple Noon and The Talented Mr. Ripley on ShotDeck today!
MUSIC VIDS & COMMERCIALS
In December, ShotDeck released over 16,000 screenshots from 100 music videos and 200 commercials.
There are music videos from indie pop rockers The 1975 and Benny Sings, modern R&B superstars Jorja Smith and The Weeknd, and pop queens Lady Gaga and Rosalía, as well as dozens more!
On the commercials side, check out new work representing brands such as Facebook, Lyft, McDonald’s, Under Armour and Yves Saint Laurent.
Thanks for an amazing year. We can’t wait to see you all in 2025, and we have a bumper January lined up to kick things off. Stay tuned for a mega drop of an all-time classic television series (as well as a couple of modern favorites!), curations of beloved filmmakers from both ends of the 20th century, and a whole host of films from the Fall Awards Season. See you in the new year!
