Meeting shot from the crop duster scene in North By Northwest (1959)

This is a still from Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest (1959)

A car has just dropped off the Man on the right. Cary Grant's character Roger Thornhill has been waiting on the left side of the road to meet a secret agent named George Kaplan for the first time. Thornhill has been waiting on the road for some time, leaning with anticipation as previous vehicles came and went wondering if this car would be the one carrying his covert contact. The man on the right is looking at Thornhill after being dropped off. But will then look down the road most of the time, as if waiting for someone. Glancing back at Thornhill again as if he might or might not be the agent in question. Thornhill prepares to approach the man to determine if he is the man he has come to see.

There is no soundtrack throughout. Only ambient sounds.

Note the shot. The landscape is barren and clean, lightly colored in earth tones. The two men are dressed in dark suits, starkly contrasting with their surroundings. This forces the viewer to focus intently on the two figures.

The road is shot at an angled perspective, the lines drawing our eye towards Thornhill, our protagonist who is the primary focus of our film.

The road is a split with a median line, indicating a barrier between the two men that must be crossed for a secret conversation to occur.

The road is a broad, bare, open gulf that would be a long challenge to cross making Thornhill vulnerable and exposed.

The camera is on Thornhill's side of the barrier, because as the protagonist we the audience are on his side, wanting him to succeed.

The barbwire fence behind him and the telephone line down the road, visually prevent escape. Thornhill has nowhere to go but towards the Man.

The Man on the right is slightly closer to the camera causing him larger and more intimidating than Thornhill. This makes him a more menacing prospect to walk towards.

The man on the right is wearing a hat to shade his eyes from the late morning sun. Thornhill is not wearing a hat making him unprepared and even more vulnerable.

The man on the right stands alone in the open space with no fence around, his arms braced behind him all indicating a stronger more powerful presence than the slightly slouching Thornhill.

Thornhill is on the left side of the shot, wanting to move to the right. As an American film directed towards an audience that reads English from left to right, our eyes instinctively want to push Thornhill across the frame from left to right.

All of these items are subtle artistic cues that drive into our subconscious and cause us to side with Grant's character and anticipate his task at hand more intensely than we normally would otherwise. Forcing our attention, and bringing us suspensefully to the edge of our seat. This seemingly simple shot is only on screen for a couple of seconds. But a detail oriented master planner like Hitchock worked on it for far longer than that.

Here's the clip:

DeadCenter Film Festival Director's Panel

L to R: Ryan Bellgardt, Mickey Reece, Neil Berkeley, Bob Byington, Tava Sofsky

The X-Files: Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"

I finished rewatching season five of the X-Files last weekend which allowed me to rewatch the film for the first time since it was in theaters. In honor of that, I'm posting a five photo album from my favorite episode that I had posted on my old deleted reddit account.

Writer Darin Morgan again proves he's brilliant by stitching together a plethora of neat references and deadpan humor into a seamlessly entertaining story that respectfully pokes fun at the series itself. Here are some of my favorite moments.

"You ever flown a flying saucer? Afterwords, sex seems trite."

Notice the mashed potato homage to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. 

"I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons

and not learn a little something about courage."

Notice the "I Want To Believe" poster in Blaine's room. 

Conspiracy hound Jesse Ventura as a Man In Black 

Ventura performs a Pendulum Backbreaker on Blaine 

"As for Reynard Muldrake, a ticking timebomb of insanity, 

his quest into the unknown has so warped his psyche one 

shudders to think how he receives any pleasures from life."

Easy. By masturbating while watching the Patterson-Gimlin film.