Brian De Palma is a cinematographic gem; his works exert a vivid visual tour de force, capturing the true essence of cinema with every possible trick in the book. In a scene from his forgotten masterpiece Phantom of the Paradise (1974), De Palma pieces together a multitude cinematographic technique in a single (or double, due to his proficient use of split-screen) flowing take. The entirely of the shot (which focuses on a rehearsal by the film’s leading antagonistic band, The Juicy Fruits) poses itself as a tracking shot, following a car as it traverses backstage in one frame, and the band’s musical practice in the other. As it begins it centres on a long establishing shot, eventually alternating between long shots (focusing on dialogue between two or so characters) and concluding with quick a pan/zoom–from the car on which The Juicy Fruits are congregating, to a medium long shot of the Phantom, and eventuating in a close up of Swan, the film’s antagonist.

In this the frame is perpetually mobile, providing the viewer with a continuous look into the actions of the unsuspecting victims as the Phantom leads his opposition into oblivion. In the space of just 3 minutes, De Palma manufactures a wholly cinematic scene, utilising the camera to its full mobile extent and with it a lather of creeping tension. While De Palma tends to make his cinematographic choices as obvious as possible, opting for the artificial rather than the naturalistic, other directors, such as Zodiac‘s (2007) David Fincher who designs his clean visual style around the nuances of camerawork, see cinematography as the key to a film’s heart. Fincher is infamous for his perfectionist nature, known to force actors to reshoot a scene an insane amount of times (98 for a 6 minute sequence in The Social Network (2010)); stressing the importance of cinematography in its involvement with the overall film form (that, or his actors really just suck).