Hey there,

The Weekly Frame gives you actionable filmmaking and storytelling insights that help you craft better videos.

In every frame, I'll share one insight into YouTube or traditional filmmaking, explore a creative technique or trend, show an actionable tip to improve your videos, and a personal reflection—all in a concise, easy-to-apply format.

Now, let's dive in!

This Week's Frame

Over the last years, there's an interesting development happening in the YouTube landscape. While big creators like Mr Beast have obviously experienced massive growth, there's a complete new cohort of creators coming. But this is not just a new generation, it's a complete artistic movement. They call themselves New Wave.

New Wave creators leave the metric driven approach behind and focus on crafting stories with artful shots, easy pacing, and a focus on storytelling. It's all about creating movie like videos and high quality content.

Since my own video style is leaning towards this direction and I never really liked those fast-cut videos, it's nice to see that we are getting more attention. At this point you've likely seen some of these videos, but if you haven't, here are a few prominent creators in this space: Life of Riza, Colt Kirwan, Ryan Ng, Natalie Lynn, Gawx Art, etc.

I think a lot of people are getting bored with the same fast-paced and metric driven videos that we've seen for the last 5 years. While this has certainly shown massive success, I think it limits us a bit in creative expression.

I believe currently is a great time to get started and discovered on YouTube. And if you're leaning towards this style, this is your chance to glow!

Frame by Frame

This week we'll have a closer look at a creator called Andrew. He's quite new in the space but has established himself quickly. I really like his style (which falls into the New Wave Creators) and is slightly oriented on Gawx Art.

A recent frame I enjoyed was this one:

I think it's a beautifully composed shot that has something very interesting to it. I especially like how the sunset casts this warm light on the wall. There's also a high contract between the bright window and the dark interior, while still maintaining details. We can see Andrew in the first third with some nice details on his face.

The great news, this setup is quite easy and very realistic for you to try. The only requirement is pretty much just a window which faces the sunrise or sunset. And even if it doesn't, you could simply put out a 200w light outside to simulate the sun. And that's it. An easy shot that looks super cinematic.

Frame it Better

An in my opinion underrated way to enhance your storytelling is paying attention to your First and Last Frame (or Opening and Closing Image). While this is common practice in the film industry, we don't see it that much on YouTube.

The idea is that your first frame is contrasting your last frame by illustrating the main characters journey and character development. Here's an example from Black Swan.

In this case there'a a literal contrast between black and white. Torn between light and dark throughout the film, the differing color palettes visually represent the journey that Natalie Portman’s character has experienced.

While it's not always as obvious as in this example, this can be literally anything. Angry vs happy, single vs married, city vs rural village, etc. We want contract!

Since we're usually dealing with shorter videos, the contrast might be not as strong and rather subtle. Still, there are lots of ways to incorporate that. Ask yourself, how the main character's (you) or the viewer's perspective changes when watching your video. And then try to find something visually representing that change.

Final Frame

In the last weeks I've been watching the German series DARK (2017). I was honestly very positively surprised. Beautiful cinematics, insane storyline, and wow, the sound design! In my opinion, DARK has a very distinctive sound design that is quite different from other series. It perfectly balances the ratio between reality and abnormal world in a unique way.

While some might argue their signature sounds are overused, I believe that is what it makes it so unique. It creates a certain feeling of mystery and darkness throughout the show.

It's already one of my favorite shows, so if you're curious and into mysterious and mind blowing stuff, that's for you!

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Thanks for reading this week's frame. See you in the next one!

Markus