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Star Wars (1977)
One of the most important films of all time
Whilst films released today may surpass elements of Star Wars, A New Hope, I would struggle to find a film that better defined the new era of both cinema and sci-fi, from the story to technical aspects.
The narrative structure of the film is fast-paced, compared to others of the era, with very well knitted story arcs throughout the film. The placement of action and dialogue/information heavy scenes is well spread through the film and really established a newer narrative structure to which many modern films, especially sci-fi ones use heavily today.
Technically, the film pioneered not only new visual effects techniques, but a bold new visual style that is such a departure from what you would associate with 70's and earlier eras of film-making. The lack of any mention of planet earth, or our 'current' generation of mankind pushes the film into its own self-made universe, with technology, culture, etc that supposedly evolve separately from ours. These new planets, spaceships, aliens and robots are all superbly made for the era. Other films laid the groundwork for the visual effects techniques the first trilogy would use, what really sets star wars apart, however, is not only the quality, but sheer breath and scale of their usage throughout almost every scene in the franchise. Visual effects were doubtlessly there to impress, but they also served a proper narrative purpose, not just awe and bragging rights.
Industrial Light and Magic, creators of visual effects for Star Wars, refined a lot of technologies in their first outing on this film. Computer controlled motion photography, film compositing techniques and modelling.
On top of this, the visuals play host to a fantastic soundtrack from the perspective of both music, sound effects and dialogue. The sound is some of the most impressive from the era and really lacks that '50's-80's era' sound that I ofte notice listening to older films.
Sure, there may be films before which first used the techniques Star Wars did, and many after which improved on these combination of elements. However, what Star Wars: A New Hope and later iterations of the first trilogy do so well, is combining them in a very competent way, which really defined a new era of cinema and put Star Wars at a cut above the rest.
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
A fitting next level concert film for a next level live show.
I was excited for this from the beginning, however mostly expected them to take the feed from the cameras used to relay video of the stage to the audience...
However I was blown away by the cinematography, camera movement and image quality and did not expect them to fill the stadium with 22 cinema cameras! The audio was also as close to perfect as you can get throughout, all the stops were pulled out for this film!
Taylor is obviously an icon and owns the stage along with her band and backup dancers with an exciting set of new songs and throwbacks, epic moments and more intimate ones with the audience. The actual stage is impressive in scale (In the credits a crew-member mentions it is larger in width an length than a Boeing 767!) and is a step-up even compared to some of the biggest stadium productions!
A great way to end 2018 and a fantastic show of not only Taylor's live talent but also the technical capabilities of what is possible in live music and video production!