Filmmaking is such an involved profession. Every single intricacy is important. The slightest change, while it may be unnoticeable, can have an effect on the audience. Learning about these aspects can actually enhance the film-going experience and maybe even help you better distinguish between the good ones and the bad ones.

5. Composition

Shot composition is one of the most essential aspects of cinematography. It is the line of connectivity between motion pictures and photography. Most people don’t know that film shoots are actually referred to as “principal photography” and the very idea of a movie is a picture that moves.

Composition is the art of placing the camera, objects and people in the frame to express what the filmmakers are trying to express. This includes everything like the tightness of the shot from close-ups to wide shots, the amount of space between objects and the angle in which the camera captures all of this.

4. Lighting and color

These can be grouped together because they have such a close relationship to the eye of the viewer. When lighting a scene, the most subtle change can affect the mood. For more serious noir-type films, harsh lighting and contrast is very typical while lighthearted films and TV series tend to use a lot of key light to fill the room. Mixing up these to fundamentals opens up the possibility of negative outcomes.

For the indoor scenes, a lot of interesting lighting techniques are used. In this example, director of photography Rob Richardson used up-bounce lighting to light the characters faces. The light shines brightly down on the table and bounces up toward the actors. When the camera is set to expose the characters’ faces, the table produces this exquisite glow effect.

Color can be used for a number of different effects. In this example, Quentin Tarantino’s "The Hateful Eight," the cold outdoors are tinted slightly blue. This portrays the extreme weather conditions the characters are encountering. Contrarily, the warm tones indoors communicate the comfort inside Minnie’s Haberdashery.

Placing both environments in the frame make for a very beautiful image.

3. Blocking

Blocking, similarly to shot composition, is all about the placement of the characters and the camera. However, blocking refers specifically to movement. It is a term that originated in the theatre and translates directly to film with the addition of a key character: the camera.

The blocking of a scene can do miles for storytelling, as you can see in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece "Vertigo."

2. Sound

When people think of movies, they think of it first and foremost as a visual medium. On the contrary, the sound of a film is almost equally as important as the visual. It can do the same for storytelling as lighting, blocking and composition. Sound includes dialogue, sound effects and the score. The thing that is important to realize is that all three of those aspects are of near equal importance. A film without dialogue (unless it is a silent film) will have challenges with communication. A film without music or sound effects can be suffocating to the audience. Nonetheless, filmmakers can use these parameters to their artistic advantage.

1. Editing

Putting all of these pieces together is essential to the presentation of a film. Knowing how long to hold a shot or which angle to tell the story from is all the job of the editor of the film. It can make or break a movie. The editor is as much of an actor as the ones you see on the screen. They have to know and understand the film. They have to understand the performances and the characters. They have to be intimately connected to every part of a film in order for it to communicate correctly.

Hopefully the next time you watch a film, you’ll be able to point out some of these aspects and try to understand what the filmmakers are trying to say with them. It’ll be a profoundly influential experience for you.