First off is the bracing 2002 Brazilian period crime drama CITY OF GOD, co-directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund and shot by César Charlone. It was nominated for several Oscars including direction, cinematography, and editing, a rare feat for an international production. The film is cinematically bold on almost every level, from the aggressive low angle, high angle, and occasional dutch angle framing to the hard undifussed lighting and super high contrast color grade. A perfect source of inspiration for music videos or any film project looking to adopt a more expressionistic visual language.

Then we have the 2017 Indian comedy-drama, NEWTON, directed by Amit V. Masurkar and shot by Swapnil S. Sonawane. The film was a critical smash hit, receiving near universal acclaim and was nominated for a number of prestigious Indian cinema awards, including several for its cinematography. The film works within a beautiful pallet of yellows and greens and a largely restrained framing style that allows for a handful of powerful moments where these patterns are broken to great emotional effect.

And then finally we have the 2002 Chinese action film HERO, directed by Zhang Yimou and shot by frequent Wong Kar Wai collaborator Christopher Doyle. Words cannot do justice to the breathtaking epic quality of the imagery in this film. From the opening scenes juxtaposing extreme closeups with massive extreme wide shots, to the sweeping desert fight sequence near the end of the film. For the type of bird’s-eye stylistic perspective you can only get from a site like Shotdeck, try viewing these images in our smallest grid display, sorted by shot time, and scrolling through them to see the drastic shifts in color pallet over the course of the film.