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Skills and techniques to tell better stories
From deliberately imperfect footage to controlled-chaos edits and music that fights the visuals, here’s what’s hot in filmmaking now
f you have spent years perfecting your craft to create films with immaculate lighting, pristinely sharp footage,
elaborate techniques. But you might need to rethink some of the rules. Rule 1: Perfect doesn’t always look real Higher resolution, greater dynamic range and ever-more-sophisticated noise reduction have given us extraordinary technical quality and progressively cleaner digital images. But one trend involves making all that expensive tech look like it came from a battered VHS camcorder. Analogue aesthetics are a major influence, with VHS increasingly joining 8mm film as shorthand for memory and nostalgia. RGB separation, scan lines, tracking errors, ghosting, colour bleeding and low-res softness are deliberately introduced because they evoke the visual language of home recordings from the eighties, nineties and early noughties. It works precisely because it clashes with today’s perfectly controlled digital imagery. What was once considered a technical defect can now communicate intimacy, memory and authenticity.
smooth camera moves and carefully polished edits, then we might have some thought-provoking news. All these hallmarks of a high-end production are still valid, but the creative landscape is changing at a rapid pace. Faced with audiences consuming an extraordinary volume of beautifully produced imagery every day, filmmakers now need to somehow distinguish their work. This takes intention, authenticity and craft. The work that cuts through isn’t necessarily the slickest, busiest or most technically complicated. It’s the work with a strong idea behind it. That’s the findings of a study into the latest trends in commercial filmmaking, as commissioned by stock music agencies Musicbed and Filmsupply. For working filmmakers, it has to be seen as positive news. You don’t necessarily need more expensive kit, bigger crews or ever more
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September/October 2026
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